Integrating faith and work is one of the biggest gaps in church ministry today. Most Christians spend the majority of their waking hours at work, navigating ethical dilemmas, difficult relationships, and daily decisions that test their faith. Yet what gets talked about in church on Sunday rarely connects with what people are wrestling with Monday through Saturday. Many business leaders feel like church either puts them on a pedestal as "job creators" or critiques them for participating in capitalism—and neither approach helps them figure out how to follow Jesus in the workplace.

In this episode, Dr. Michael Binder—a Luther Seminary professor and co-owner of a five-generation HVAC business—shares what he's learned from living in both worlds. Michael helps us imagine what it would look like for churches to create space where people can talk about their real work struggles, what preaching sounds like when it equips people for the six days they're not in church, and why helping members integrate faith and work into their daily callings might be some of the most important ministry we do. If your members spend most of their lives outside the church building, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about faith and work integration.

I guess the simple approach is, if we're assuming that the Church is the folks who are part of this group, who are doing life every day, how can the sermon be about that almost all the time? Engaging with a lot of the hard questions that we have in the world right now, because everyone lives in the world. So how do we show up? At Luther we say, as Christian public leaders, how do we show up as faithful people in the midst of all the different things that are going on?

How do we recognize that we don't all think the same way about those things in our congregation? So I think those kinds of sermons that are about equipping, they're about empowerment, they're about our own roles in some of the messes that we're all in and owning our parts of it too, not just pointing outward. They help a tremendous amount.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Pivot Podcast, where we explore how the Church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Dwight Zscheile

Hi, and I'm Terri Elton. And today we're joined by one of our faculty members at Luther Seminary, Dr. Michael Binder. Michael is Assistant Professor of Congregational Mission and Leadership, and he co-authored here with Dwight Shiley and Tessa Pinkstaff, the book, Leading Faithful Innovation. Prior to joining Luther Seminary faculty, he was co-founding pastor of Mill City Church in Minneapolis.

We've had Michael on the podcast before where he's talked about church planting and church innovation. But today we are going to ask him some different questions because he, along with his wife, Carissa, are also owners and presidents of a five generation family HVAC business. And in that work, he confronts daily kinds of work that

are complicated dilemmas and opportunities for Christians who might face things like this in the workplace. We wanted Michael to join us today to explore this side of his work and what he's learned about this for church leaders and can help us with our members as we try to live and lead faithfully in workplace, home, and neighborhoods. Michael, welcome to the Pivot Podcast.

Thank you. Good to be back.

So tell us a bit about this side of your life. Tell us about this business that's been in your family for generations. How big is it? What are some of the realities involved in running it?

Yeah, so I grew up in a small business family, five generations, my grandfather ⁓ and my dad running the company at different points. ⁓ Mowing grass at age eight and learning how to make what they call slips and drives out of metal in a sheet metal shop at age 12. Slip and drive, they're like the connecting pieces for air ducts that ⁓ make them connect to.

Okay, you gotta tell me what's a slip and drop?

Seems like they're important.

They're super important. So you want a 12-year-old making your slips and drives if you want them to connect well, for sure. ⁓ Yeah, the business is a good size. We have about 40 employees now in three different parts of the HVAC world, commercial and residential, and service. And ⁓ it's kind of a big, small company, if you're familiar with that category in business. It's not a big company. We're not like over 50 employees kind of style.

we're on the larger end of what a small company kind of looks like. ⁓ it's a great business. ⁓ It's a lot of work. There's a lot happening every minute of every day. And ⁓ it's really fun to be part of the team that's working on that.

So ⁓ Dwight and I actually enjoy saying, so Michael, this week, tell us something you faced in this world, because I'll just say it's really different than what I encounter in my daily life. So just give us some examples of questions that you face as you try and lead these employees and has literally, as you've talked about, of using your leadership, understanding in churches in a business to create a culture that is the kind you want.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me start with a very short, sort of funny story. a couple of weeks ago, had a team of people who were moving a furnace, installing a new furnace in a St. Paul home. And when they were ⁓ moving one of the air ducts that went outside, the basement was filled with wasps, small wasps. And so they hustled out of the basement, called me.

And this is one of those like in seminary world, say, know, seminary didn't prepare me for this. Like no amount of business training trains you for that phone call exactly. Like, okay, what we need to get this furnace installed and there's bees in the basement. Long story short, I called the homeowner. We're going to contact a company to come help them safely remove the wasps. And then she says, no, I'm going to remove the wasps. And ⁓

This ⁓ somewhat small in stature lady who owned this house went downstairs, covered herself appropriately, took a water bottle and started soaking some wasps and knocking them to the ground so that the workers could continue their work, putting the new furnace in her home, because she really wanted that new furnace installed. Clearly. And these two young gentlemen who work for us, our technicians, are standing in awe while this woman who's about twice their age is taking care of the wasps so they can do their work. ⁓ And she's just an amazing.

person and I developed a relationship with her as a customer, went back to her house to make sure everything was working right, listened to some of her stories about ⁓ immigrating from Mexico at a young age and raising her children here and some of the things and experiences that she's had. So ⁓ every day is really different. You just never know what's going to happen when you are engaged in people's lives. in a lot of people's homes. We become intertwined in some of their stories, some of their struggles.

and then our own struggles to try to do what it is that they've asked us to do in improving their space and their ⁓ comfort and their heating and air conditioning needs. ⁓ I think in terms of the faith questions, every single day there's a bunch of questions about, what does it like to show up as a Christian in this situation? Instead of just thinking of your faith as applying to your worship life or your engagement with church,

but to actually drive to work. My dad taught me this, like having a prayer practice to say, God, this is your work today. This is your company. What do you want me to help it do? How do you want me to steward it today? ⁓ And that ends up taking you in some different directions than if you're not asking that question as a starting place.

Well, let's go into that. Share maybe a story of a time when you had an opportunity as an owner of this business and in that workplace to where your faith really made a difference or you had an opportunity to witness to the gospel.

Yeah, I'll tell a couple quick ones. I think there's one category of opportunity that is trying to help people who work with us, who work at this company, get a sense of our own belief, ⁓ not as a way to sort of say, you should necessarily believe what we believe, but to help them have a window into, here's why we're doing this the way we're doing it. This is the belief about Jesus, the way we're trying to follow Jesus, that's informing the decisions we're making.

And there have been some real great stories of people who I think become more curious about Christian faith because of those interactions. There's also a category of opportunity that I would say comes along when people are struggling. Like any part of life or any organization group of people you're with, we went through a season not that long ago where one of our employees lost their son in a single car accident. ⁓ And as tragic as that has been, continues to be, it ended up

Allowing us to sort of help that technician find a faith community that could walk with him through that continues to walk with him through that and I think if you were here You'd say that his faith has really taken a turn ⁓ for the better as a result So there's those kinds of opportunities And then the third category I think has to do with just trying to be a company. That's not just about profit maximization or Trying to get the most out of every ⁓ relationship

and ⁓ communicating that to customers to say, we're trying to do what we actually think is best for you, not just what's best for us. And there's a witness to the good news in that, that ⁓ people don't have to be afraid that they're always being taken advantage of and can put some trust in an organization to say, whatever you recommend, we trust that it's actually what I should do. Because believe it or not, I don't know that much about.

HVAC and I don't buy a lot of furnaces, so I don't really know what the best one is for my life. So I think there's witness in all of those kinds of things.

So what's a story or a time when it just hasn't gone that way? Either people haven't received what you are offering to them in the light, right, that you just have offered, or if there's something in what you did, you're like, okay, that totally was not only a bad leadership move, it really actually, I didn't treat them in the way that I would like to as a minister of the gospel or as a person of faith, right?

Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ I think that's one of my biggest struggles to just be a little vulnerable about it is I don't know how well I'm doing what you're asking me. You know, I think some days there's some stories where you're like, wow, this is really neat. You can see God coming through to people. And then there's other days where I think maybe that person thinks worse of God because of their interaction with me or this company, especially when there are hard situations, conflict situations, performance issues, disagreements, stuff like that.

So yeah, I can think of a handful of times for sure where you go home at night and thinking that that was not what happened today. Like, I don't know that me or this company represented God very well today. ⁓ And trying to be honest about that with yourself and the people close to you and maybe even the folks who have been impacted by that. ⁓ And I feel like that's the hardest thing. ⁓

To be just slightly more specific, I think I'd say whenever there's a conflict or there's a hard choice to be made, like are we gonna eat this cost or try to pass it on to somebody else that when a project goes not the way you hoped it would go? Or are we gonna be slightly less honest about this than we maybe could get away with being or?

⁓ Do we offer something at a discounted rate, even though that means the profit share is going to be less for the group at the end of the year? And is everybody unborn with that or is that just Michael and Chris's idea, you know? So there's a lot of conflicting ⁓ priorities and values, I think, that I'm not always sure are a great witness to who I think God is.

So how, I understand ⁓ multiple kind of leadership and accountability, right? I just preached on the shrewd businessman, you know, manager this weekend and you know, who are you loyal to, right? We get asked. But how do you and your wife navigate that? Because my guess is you're very different and you would come at it very differently. But you can probably make some agreements with each other.

and say, we're gonna use that to figure out the best way. If we're gonna err, we're gonna err in this way.

Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, I do run into quite a few people who say, I'm not sure I would want to work with my spouse or I'm not sure how well that would go. And Chris and I have very different personalities for sure. I do think that we try to lean into the different areas where we're strong and defer to the other one in the areas where we're weak. And then we ⁓ sometimes really successfully hold some boundaries between faith and work. Excuse me, between, not between faith and work.

between home life and work. And then other times we're like, man, these kids are never gonna wanna work here because we've been complaining for a week about how hard this is. So ⁓ I do think there's been a really great partnership there, but there's also been a good cost, a pretty significant cost to just having to be responsible for it and having the weight of that responsibility impact the rest of your life too, in your kid's life.

Thanks.

So this is a podcast, as you know, for church leaders. And I want to kind of lean in a bit around what you can help church leaders understand from, you're able to sort of have both sides of the perspective on this. You are a church leader, you're a pastor, seminary professor, but as a business owner of faith, you're wrestling with all kinds of questions. And we want to lean into, you know, how could the church come alongside you and others who are doing this kind of work?

in the world as Christians, in their vocations. And I think sometimes for pastors, the primary way they talk about business or economics at all, if they do talk about it, is often in a lot of churches maybe a critique of capitalism or economics. ⁓ And so I know, for instance, of a church where the largest donor who worked in finance got so tired of listening to sermons for the pastor.

critiquing capitalism that he volunteered to just serve in the nursery, unsending warnings during the sermon so he wouldn't have to listen to this. And he was the largest donor. ⁓ And so I think, you I've heard from a number of business people over the years who feel like there's this disconnect between how the church actually understands and engages the very real dilemmas that they have to engage as business people, as, you know, workplace leaders.

and what actually gets talked about in church and how it gets talked about in church. So how do you think theologically about business and work and what would be your counsel to church leaders around?

Thanks, that's a great question. I feel like one of the things that business leaders, folks who are really engaged in their vocations outside of the church want the most is a space to be heard about what's going on in their own everyday life. Because I think sometimes folks feel like when they come to church, they need to put that part aside because the church itself has so many needs.

organizational needs, financial needs, et cetera. And so it's like you have that whole world and maybe you're volunteering or you're in a group or something. But there's very few opportunities just to talk about it, right? Not even to necessarily do anything, but just to roundtable around how did it go last week? Like, where were those successes and failures that we talked about a minute ago in terms of trying to show up well and represent Jesus well in whatever work you're doing?

So I think having those opportunities could be a big help. ⁓ But I think maybe the larger problem with some of the black and whiteness that I think you're describing, like business is either very evil, dominating everybody, ⁓ or it's the greatest thing in the world in some churches. like these business leaders are the most important people ever, and they're the job creators and the folks that we should all be really thankful exist.

that I have really hard time with that category as well. so I feel like is there a way for us to be not so extreme about it and talk about some of the passages in scripture where people are challenged not just for wholesale systems change kinds of questions, but just what can you do next week with whatever power, privilege, influence that you have in your work?

What can you do next week to join God and to share good news and to be a source of grace, love, peace in the world? ⁓ maybe whether that's big or small or whatever, and those kinds of small actions, think, or consistent actions could actually really make a different kind of impact. But if you feel like, I got to run to the nursery or, ⁓ to avoid the criticism or.

I come every week and I'm just pedestalized, you know, because of what I'm doing, whether or not people even know what it is. So, I mean, I think that middle ground would really be helpful. And then the last part, I think about like what would I hope for from pastors and what I think I tried to do when I was pastoring as a primary location is to preach and to be available in such a way that really emphasizes the fact that people are doing God's work.

when they're doing their work. ⁓ Kingdom Calling by Amy Sherman is a really good resource that I leaned on a lot, have leaned on a lot over the years. She does a good job of describing these different categories of work and how you can show up and share gospel in those different categories. But the kinds of ethical decisions that people are making, the kinds of relationships they're building, the actual creativity and quality of the work they're doing, all of those things can represent God. ⁓

Because I was trained at Luther Seminary, and we talk a lot about God's action, I really want the church to be a place, a place on Sundays or whenever we gather together, where when people come, they realize like, hey, we're here to worship God, connect with God, receive God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, fellowship with one another, and be sent back out to do the primary work that God's given us to do. And if it fills us up for that and encourages us for that, and we get to share stories about that.

then ⁓ church on Sunday or whenever we gather isn't the point. It's a means to equipping people to be disciples in everyday life.

So I really appreciate that because I think it allows us to kind of go in the middle, no matter what you're doing, right? It gives a lot of freedom to contextualize it in whatever field that we're in. Because you translate, you go back and forth, you're teaching here, you're talking with pastors, and then you're back doing the...

Things

you just talked about.

I even remember what's the connector called again?

and drives. I mean, I'm not making any slips and drives anymore.

No, but I don't know what those are right ⁓ because you're going back and forth right What could church leaders learn? about organizationally some things to think about as if they're Organizationally we have to run the church maybe not for the same kind of profit or capitalistic gain that something else would but we have to have Organization we have to pay the budget we have to get a newer at my church's

raising money to buy a new roof because otherwise we won't be insured. That would be bad not to get a new roof. But also, what are you hearing and learning from the people that you encounter, whether it's in your workers or the bee lady, the people, your customers, that we, that are in ministry, could be listening for and say, this is whatever people's everyday struggles are. Because I know people call either

when they've planned long ahead and they're gonna get that heater or it's a crisis. Yeah. Right? So you meet people in really interesting moments in their life.

I think one of the things that has impacted me the most in the last four or five years that I've been doing this every day is the urgency of the work. like, you have to get it done, whatever the thing is that you're doing that day, like it needs to be done. It has to be done in a certain amount of time. When our folks come to work, they know we have a day, two days, five days, whatever it is. And the folks who you're working for expect that it's gonna get done.

And in my experience of the church world, both as a pastor and as a consultant, I know that sometimes we kind of duck outcomes. we don't really like... Sometimes. ⁓ You know, we don't really like to say, you know, we're trying for this particular ⁓ outcome or even being held accountable for an outcome. And we have lots of reasons why the things don't work out the way they do.

Ministry is very different from business. Let me make sure and say that. It's not that we should run the church as a business. I don't think that at all. But I don't think it would hurt us to learn from some of the sense of urgency that businesses have, because if they don't accomplish those goals, they don't get to stay in business. And in the church, we have a little bit of this urgency right now, because people are thinking if we don't do something, we're not going to be here anymore in certain instances. I'm not really thinking about that either. I'm thinking about...

⁓ What is it? What is the work that God's called this particular church to do? And every church kind of has a different take on what their personality and calling is. But then we really have to do that. Like, it's not like if we don't do it, it's okay, somebody else will do it, another church will pick it up, God will figure out another way to do it. Like, this is our part. And to have this sense of urgency around it and ⁓ kind of compelling vision, I think it draws people in so they don't feel like, well, if I show up,

It's fine if I don't, it's also fine. Like we need to know that that work is essential and that God's calling us to it and we need to do it together and it needs to be done right now.

So I want to kind of pull back, you know, a thread that, pull on a thread that you had mentioned earlier, and I'm thinking about one of the quotes that our friend Scott Cremode says in one of his books. ⁓ He says that church leaders tend to focus on the things that the church cares about, not the things that people primarily care about in the congregation, right? The things that keep them up at night. ⁓ And so what might that look like, imaginatively, with us? If a church said, look, I really want to lean into

coming alongside people and not just sort of doing this from the pulpit as to preaching about this, but really creating spaces where folks can bring their questions around what does it mean to navigate the very real, whether it be ethical dilemmas, spiritual challenges, ⁓ economic challenges, whatever they are in their workplaces. What does that look like? What might that look like as a primary focus for congregational life?

Great question. ⁓ I think it might have to start for pastors and church leaders listening. It might need to start with, how do we remove some of the pressures and expectations around the organizational, the running of the church organization to free up some of our spiritual leaders to do the kinds of things that you're asking about in the question? Because I think a lot of our pastors might hear this and go,

This is another great set of ideas of things I would do if I didn't have 9,000 other things I'm supposed to do. ⁓

to

cleaning the bees out of their own church space.

They're trying to make sure the wasps don't get upstairs from the basement exactly, or the roof doesn't leak. Like, we need to free up people who have spent a good chunk of their lives training, praying, being sent, called, formed to spiritually lead. A lot of them are not doing spiritual leadership, but 10 or 20 % of the time, maybe that. So is there a lightweight and low maintenance version of church that we do things a little more simply?

⁓ we, you know, streamline resources and, we lower expectations, maybe even a little bit in certain ways to allow for those things to be done fairly easily. Not so that the pastor can just do whatever every week and, ⁓ not work hard, but because then they could be freed up to say, okay, what's actually happening in the lives of the people in the congregation. As I was driving over here, I was thinking about this framework of

If the church is people, which we are always saying, right, it's not the building, it's the people, it sure feels like the building, but it is the people, technically speaking, it is the people. Well, like it's today, Tuesday, what is the church doing right this minute? And if a pastor knows that and can stay in tune with it or a group of spiritual leaders, not just the pastor in a church knows what that is and can say like today is just as important as...

whatever we're gonna do later this week, and what do we need to do to really be with those people, empowering them, praying for them, praying right now at whatever time it is that somebody's going through something that could go one or two ways, and we really need to be with them and say, know, try to follow the leading of the Spirit in this moment. Now you start to get a picture of what church even is.

And then on Sunday, if it's a collection of stories of people saying, here's where God showed up in my life this week, here's where an opportunity arose and I stepped into it, and we hear those things, and the church is there to support and celebrate and grieve and kind of come alongside all of that, ⁓ it'll be a very different experience of church.

I was thinking about is what you said. My daughter and I were talking last night as I was driving home and because she'd sent me a text, one of her co-workers, fiancees had been beat up and hospitalized out of town and she had to leave and go be with him and wasn't sure what was going to happen. what was just kind of sweet in that kind of crisis is like she's trying to navigate

I got work to do, and I got to care for my coworker. How do I do this? Now, her boss is a member of our church. They go to church together, right? And it's not a faith place, but they do talk about faith because they have that in common, right? And there's been some conversation. And it was really interesting to me to hear her say, Mom, there's not a lot I could actually do for her. But you know what?

I could reach out to you and dad and pray for her. I could do this. could help navigate some things in the office and whatever. And I thought it's been really interesting to see her as a young adult, full-time employee person trying to integrate faith into her work. Right? And I'm like, that's what I want the pastor to care about. Right? On Sunday. Or that's what the church leader to say, whatever's in the lectionary is fine for you to preach on.

But remember me, you know, I'm juggling whatever the things are in everybody's daily work. And I hear you inviting us not only to think about that and how we, the language we use in the examples, but in what ministry looks like.

Yeah, yeah. What's the primary thing we're doing? Yeah. know, if the primary thing we're doing isn't necessarily controlled by the organization we call the church. The primary thing that we are doing is whatever you all are doing between Monday and Saturday. And worshiping God and sharing communion and practicing baptism and confession and all those things, they are means for us to be sent into the world that God is in the act of saving right now.

And that's the work we're all doing until we're called somewhere else. So how do we talk about that, celebrate it, lament it, share ideas for how we do that kind of work together instead of only thinking, I bring whatever I have from that other world to try to help the church organization thrive and to relieve the staff of whatever work that they're doing so that their roles can be a little lighter.

That's the normal way. I remember a business owner, real short story, a business owner came to our church years ago and he had worked in healthcare, started healthcare companies. And he kind of snarkily said to me like, please don't ask me to volunteer in the children's ministry. And I was like, no, I want to hear why you started a healthcare company and how your faith is helping you think about the way that care is provided and people access it. And it was really a wonderful conversation. But yeah, people I think are a little afraid.

You know, I'm just going to fill a slot that needs to be filled, whether I'm gifted at that, called, talented, whatever.

I was also thinking about ⁓ what some folks, the pressures and their job, ask them to do a lot of really hard things. Maybe live in ethical dilemmas, maybe working things across continents with different systems and they're trying to navigate all of that. And I think sometimes ⁓ church leaders aren't comfortable, or I think some people don't think church leaders are comfortable.

actually sitting and helping them work it out. Right? And I think what would it mean for church to say, tell me more about that, right? What's it like making these massive decisions day in and out? I bet that's really hard or whatever. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Or to find other people that are doing that, that could have, we've talked to people at Westwood and they've had some vocational groups with business leaders talking to each other.

about how are you navigating this to just be supportive of other people. And I think that's what you're inviting us to imagine is a different ⁓ rubric, if you will, a different way of thinking about success or ministry ⁓ than just filling slots and Sunday school.

Yeah. Now, let me just say, when your job is to fill the slots and make sure that the children are well cared for, it's a really important job in a church. Super important and not that easy to accomplish that. ⁓ But there are some people for whom getting to engage with kids, coach kids, disciple kids on a Sunday morning is an absolute joy. And we need to find those folks and empower them to do that, right? ⁓

But we also need these groups that help people process what's going on in their daily life, not just as a counseling session, but as a way to say, how can we help you take the next faithful step next week as you go back into this?

So let's talk a bit about preaching. Most Sundays these days, you're probably sitting in pews, not being the one up front preaching. ⁓ What are some things that you would wish that you heard as someone sitting in the pew who's just maybe come off of a tough week trying to run this business and sort out all that you have to sort out and all the responsibility you have? What are some things that you wish that you would?

you would hear ways in which these questions could be addressed from the pulpit.

Well, shout out to my pastor, Edren Williams, Sanctuary Covenant Church on north side of Minneapolis. I feel like most Sundays I go there, I do hear those things at our church. And I do hear those charged with preaching, talking about helping us understand our giftedness by the power of the Holy Spirit, not just for the sake of the organization of the church, but for the work in the world. That's just a series we just did recently, or helping us to think about...

how we cultivate relationships with people who are not like us, not just while we're at worship on Sunday, but in our regular everyday lives. And I actually think this church does a tremendous job at that. That's not true of every congregation, but it is true in our church. And so I do wish for even more of that everywhere. I guess the simple approach is, if we're assuming that the church is the folks who are part of this group,

who are doing life every day, how can the sermon be about that almost all the time? ⁓ Engaging with a lot of the hard questions that we have in the world right now, because everyone lives in the world. So how do we show up? At Luther, we say as Christian public leaders, how do we show up as faithful people in the midst of all the different things that are going on? And how do we recognize that we don't all think the same way about those things in our congregation? ⁓

I think those kinds of sermons that are about equipping, they're about empowerment, they're about ⁓ our own roles in some of the messes that we're all in and owning our parts of it too, not just pointing outward. They help a tremendous amount as you think about your week.

Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us and sharing this other part of your life that we usually don't get to hear about you from on the Pivot Podcast. And you've given us a lot to think about for how we can walk alongside, as the church, walk alongside people in their daily lives and help them live into the callings that God's placed on their lives.

Well, it's very generous of the two of you, and thanks for modeling what we're trying to do in this podcast by saying, well, let's actually let this person talk about their work outside of the formal church. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you. And to those of you that are listening to us or watching it, we thank you for joining us. And you can help spread the word by either writing a review or, of course, sharing this pivot episode with a friend. So until next week, this is Terri and Dwight signing off.