How God can use your prayers for customers and co-workers
The incredible impact of Antique Candle Co.'s “Prayer Committee," how Brittany’s faith compelled her to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a “non-essential” company perk, and what heaven might smell like.
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as critical care nurses, fishermen, and administrative assistants? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to Brittany Whitenack, the founder of Antique Candle Company, which she’s grown from zero to 70 employees in just a few years.
Brittany’s an incredible founder who recently sat down with me to discuss the incredible impact that a prayer committee has had on her customers and her team. We talked about how her faith compelled her to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a company perk that the world told her was totally nonessential, and we also discussed what heaven might smell like when it comes to earth. You guys are going to love this terrific conversation with my new friend, Brittany Whitenack.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:14.1] JR: Hey Brittany, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:16.6] BW: Thank you. So excited to be here.
[0:01:19.0] JR: I’m super pumped about this. Hey, so we’re recording this on a Monday and I was thinking about you yesterday because on Sunday, Sabbath Sunday, as my kids call it, our home constantly smells like some amazing candle and as I was lighting the candle, I was like, “Dang, if I had planned this a little bit better, I would have had an Antique Candle Company candle burning.” But alas, I did not.
[0:01:41.8] BW: That’s all right.
[0:01:43.5] JR: If I did, which one should I have chosen? What’s your go-to candle?
[0:01:46.6] BW: Okay, Jordan, it really depends. I feel, are you a boujee candle person, do you like Reiki, are you more staple?
[0:01:54.0] JR: No. All right, here, here, I’ll give you our all-time favorite. Probably eight months out of the year, there’s a pumpkin pecan waffle candle.
[0:02:03.3] BW: Oh, dude, yes.
[0:02:03.8] JR: It’s next level, that’s my jam.
[0:02:06.0] BW: Yes, I feel, you would need a pumpkin spice or pumpkin spice latte when fall and the flannel and the bonfires come out. So, so good.
[0:02:15.9] JR: Which by the way, is absurd that we have this because I live in Tampa, Florida where it never feels like fall. So, this is just our attempt to I don't know, making it feel like sweater weather.
[0:02:25.4] BW: That’s awesome, yeah.
[0:02:26.6] JR: It’s very lame when done.
[0:02:27.8] BW: Candles can help you, yes.
[0:02:29.3] JR: Candles could help, candles can put us in the vibe, put us in the mood. Hey, tell us the founding story of this business, I love founding stories.
[0:02:35.4] BW: Yeah, it’s so funny because I never thought I’d be an entrepreneur. So, I went to Purdue University, Boiler Up, and got a business degree. I love business, it took me two times to change my major to figure that out but once I did, I took a job at Target as an assistant store manager, and Target amazing. I mean, I got 10% off, plus, another 5% off of my red card. It was fantastic.
[0:03:01.3] JR: What a country, come on.
[0:03:02.3] BW: I know, yes, but I worked that job for about a year and as a 22-year-old recent graduate, it was really, really difficult. I had 70 people under my purview, I had a lot of responsibilities and KPIs that were just kind of like thrust into the work world from academia and the expectation was to open once a week, close once a week, work every other Sunday, and as a newlywed and as a first-time manager of a large team, I was really, really struggling.
I remember one night I got home from work, I closed the store, it was one AM in the morning, my husband was in bed and I remember walking in, the sink was full of dishes, it smelled terribly, and I just remember this thought of, “Is this it, Lord?” Like, “Is this the next 50 years of my life? Life was so good, why is it so hard?” And I remember, all I could do was bend down, open the cabinet doors, pull out the Lysol, and spray those dishes, like literally.
And I just went to bed and you know, when you’re in that much pain and suffering, all you can think to do is just like, flee, like run away and so, I put in my two weeks, my husband and I talked about it and I quit and like, the number one rule they teach you at business school is, do not quit a job with nothing lined up. Like that gap in your resume is like the most horrible thing that you could do.
[0:04:29.6] JR: Must have a plan B.
[0:04:31.0] BW: Yeah, right, and so I took that summer off, I baked bread, I laid by the pool, I wasn’t like working, and after about four or five months, I got to a place where, “Okay, I think I’m ready to enter the workforce again but I picked up all these other hobbies and one of the hobbies that I picked up was candle making. I bought a USD 200 candle-making kit online, I’ve always liked candles and it was so fun.
Like, experimenting with the fragrances and the wax and finding these old ball jars and coffee tins and teacups and thinking, “Oh, I could turn that into a candle. How cool would this be to have vanilla in it, or pineapple coconut? Oh, this is so fun.” And while I was looking for work I’m like, “You know what? I wonder…” This is when Etsy was getting really popular. So, this is 2014 and I thought to myself, “I wonder if – I wonder if I could work up to the salary I was making at Target, you know, and sell these candles online?”
And I talked to my husband and he’s like, “Sure, let’s try it.” And that’s kind of how it got started, it was not the plan.
[0:05:30.1] JR: Not the plan.
[0:05:31.0] BW: Not the plan, man. I was not working the plan.
[0:05:34.3] JR: It started with play, which I think is interesting, and common.
[0:05:37.2] BW: Yeah.
[0:05:37.4] JR: Yeah. All right, give us an idea of the scale of the organization today.
[0:05:41.2] BW: Yeah. So, Antique Candle Co. today, it’s been 10 years, we’re still e-commerce based. We serve about 50,000 customers online, mostly direct to consumer. Our candles are carried in about 650 stores across the US and Canada, and depending on the time of year, right now, we employ about anywhere from 40 to 70 employees. We make thousands of candles a day, thousands of candles a day, Monday through Friday. It’s pretty incredible.
[0:06:07.1] JR: That’s unbelievable, I love it. All right, so I love being an entrepreneur. You know, I really consider myself an entrepreneur first, a content creator second but man, the journey of growing any venture, I don’t think people who have never started a venture can understand just how taxing this can be, emotionally, mentally, relationally, spiritually.
I’m curious when you look back in the last 10 years, where would you say, “Man, I had to really rely on the Lord deeply on this specific issue.” During kind of the grind and growth of this business.
[0:06:39.4] BW: Yeah. Well, Jordan, as you know, as an entrepreneur, the number one reason people got a business is because they ran out of cash. They run out of money and it’s much more likely for a business to fail than it is to continue to grow and so, I would say, year six or year seven of my business, we are going really fast but I didn’t know we were going to grow really fast and it was actually when COVID hit, and everybody was sent home, and I don't know what happened. I think maybe they realized their homes didn’t smell very good or something.
[0:07:12.7] JR: They could finally sit with that stench.
[0:07:16.2] BW: Yeah, like, “I need to order candles.” And right when that was happening, I remember talking to my attorney on the phone, I’m like, “Hey, we’re not essential.” these orders are coming in, I don't know if they’re going to continue coming in. Everybody was afraid of the economy completely crashing, and I remember thinking to myself because I had 30 employees at the time that are relying on me to provide employment.
And I remember looking at my bank balance and doing some calculations and I realized, “Okay, it’s like April one, and I have enough cash in the bank right now to pay people through the end of June. What do I do?” And I remember business owners around me laying off folks and they could go and collect unemployment and I’m like, “Oh, jeez” Like, go into that process and just then having to find another job, like what can I do?
And I remember just making this decision to pay them, at least while I had cash, and give them some time, two months, three months, before the economy completely tanks, maybe giving them a leg up. I’m just remember having to lean on the Lord a lot during that period of time because it’s really scary that that idea of not only me but there’s people under my care that are counting on me to make good business decisions, that was really, really difficult.
[0:08:29.0] JR: So, you’re paying them even though they weren’t working.
[0:08:30.6] BW: Yeah, they were trying to do as much as they could remotely but there’s really so much you could do. Like, we tried to give them side projects, like you have to come to work and make candles and it was me and then my household, which was three brothers at the time, and then, my husband. We were all showing up but funny enough, my husband was a full-time missionary at the time and he wasn’t pulling a salary.
And so, I felt this intense need to not only provide for the other families but for mine too and so, he had his work, we could jump in but pouring candles, I mean, we were – it was night and day. I’d wake up, go to work, ship all the candles I could make all the candles I could, go home, got to bed, and that was months and I – it was really difficult towards, after a few months of doing that, before everybody came back to work because I noticed my sinful heart.
I was becoming bitter towards my workforce even. I’m like, “Here I am grinding and I’m sending you a paycheck, you know?” Like, you could just see how much I had to rely on the Lord for that.
[0:09:27.6] JR: Yeah, so interesting. All right, I didn’t know your husband was a donor-supported missionary and it makes your company’s mission statement all the more interesting to me. So, on the website, it says, the company’s mission is to, “Make a positive impact in the world, by spreading light, not only the light of our candles but the light of Christ.” And here’s what I love about how that sentence is constructed.
You say, “Not only the light of our candles but also, the light of Christ.” It’s at both/and, right? In other words, “Yeah, hey, we are here to leverage this venture to the instrumental end of making disciples of Jesus Christ but there is also value intrinsically, in spreading the light of literal candles.” And I’d love for you to talk about how, why does God care about candles if they don’t save a soul.
[0:10:15.8] BW: That’s awesome. I have your book here, Jordan. The book you just wrote, the one, The Sacredness of Secular Work. On page 70, you say this: “All throughout scripture, God shows that he values work beyond its usefulness.” Genesis 2:9 says that He made, “Trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” And this is where I highlighted. “There was no need for these trees to be pleasing to the eye, there was no need but God values function and beauty, so much that he called out the beauty of the trees before their usefulness.”
That just really resonated with me a lot and has a lot to do with the question you just asked because, I mean, the candles themselves aren’t necessarily beautiful to look at but when you think about how God created us as image bearers of Himself, it’s – we focus so much on the physical attributes but we don’t – one of the senses that He gave us is the sense of smell and sometimes I think, when I picture the new heaven and the new earth, we don’t think about what it will smell like.
[0:11:20.7] JR: Oh, come on, go here, yes.
[0:11:22.7] BW: We think through our dominant sense, which is, I think, eyes, our ability to like, visually absorb what’s going on around us but I love this idea of the scent or smell, like, even – like we talked about spraying the Lysol on the dishes. Like, when maybe we think of more negative smells than we do the positive ones that provide vibes but of course, it creates – it’s its own sense of beauty.
It’s its own sense of craving hospitality, comfortability, a sense of belonging for the people that live with you and the people coming over to your house, and what other ways that I love doing this with our customers like I said, we have 50,000 customers, we’ve done this for years and we just started noticing brands copying us now but it was kind of unique at the time. We invite our customers to help us create the fragrances.
So, it’s not like we’re all sitting in a room and saying, “Hey, like, let’s make this, let’s make a blueberry cobbler, that sounds really good.” We actually decide on a category. So, say, coffee, “Let’s make a new coffee candle. Okay, let’s maybe test 20 to 25 fragrances.” And then, we distill it down to maybe four or five or six, and then, we invite our audience to be candle testers and we will literally send them four or five candles that I have no idea which, if they’re any good.
Like, and send it to their house. I mean, there’s thousands of folks that sign up. What is it about creating something and having a voice and getting your hands in the muck and creating the world around you? And we invite our audience to do that with us and then, they help us like, they give their honest feedback. We do polls, we aggregate the data, we engage with them. Like, that’s not only are we creating it but we’re inviting those who follow us to create it.
And that’s just way more fun and I always have no idea and sometimes they’re like, “Please, do not launch this candle, it smells horrible. You have no idea, I burned it in my house and it was like, do not do it.” Like, how fun is that? You know, to engage in that process.
[0:13:17.5] JR: All right. So, I got to reflect on a couple of things back here. So, the intrinsic value of creating a candle, you just hit on one. In the way that you’re creating these candles and inviting your customers into the creation process, you’re helping them live more in the image of God, which is God the creator, number one.
[0:13:35.0] BW: Yeah.
[0:13:35.3] JR: Number two, God creates beauty and so, we are free to create beautiful things, and number three, He gave us a nose, right? He gave us more than one sense and so by creating beautiful smells that brings them pleasure. By the way, your story about how you guys create the candles reminded me of this great podcast episode I listened to recently. I don’t listen to a ton of audio. It was on Masters of Scale with the founder of Exploding Kittens.
[0:13:59.5] BW: Oh.
[0:14:00.0] JR: Have you listened to this?
[0:14:01.4] BW: I know the podcast very well but I haven’t heard that episode, let me write it down.
[0:14:05.7] JR: You have to listen to this episode. It’s all how the founders of Exploding Kittens created the product in conjunction with their community. It reminds me a lot of what you guys are doing.
[0:14:16.4] BW: Oh, okay, thank you, I love it.
[0:14:19.5] JR: All right, you're welcome. All right, so hey, you talked about your team, we just talked about the intrinsic value of spreading the light of candles but you and your team are spreading the light of Christ in some pretty explicit and instrumental ways. Your mission statement is one example but you also encourage customers. I thought this is fascinating to send in prayer requests. I’m curious, do you have a story or two about the impact that that practice has had, maybe on your team internally, maybe on your customers externally?
[0:14:46.7] BW: Yeah, absolutely, one of the things that we do at Antique Candle Co. to help accomplish things outside of like, our direct workflow is we form committees. So, we have a plant committee, we have a missions committee, we have a – just like the office, a party planning committee, so awesome.
[0:15:03.9] JR: I love it. I was about to go there, so glad you did.
[0:15:06.4] BW: Yeah, but also a prayer committee. So, they’re a group of, I think about five folks who sit on this committee and they pray over requests weekly, and I thank you for sending this question in advance because I was able to get their feedback and I have three stories that just quickly, that they wanted to share with me.
[0:15:24.1] JR: I would love to hear these. Yes, this is awesome.
[0:15:26.4] BW: And so, the first one is from Mark and he is our operations technician. He is the guy that is building and fixing our candle-making equipment since we have conveyors, remember, we’re making thousands a day. So, this is what he said: “I can’t speak to the impact on the customers but for my part, it brings an added layer of spiritual awareness to the day. It could be so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day items and those prayer requests help bring that bigger picture awareness back into the equation.”
“They also help me feel more linked to the customers. We’re not just sending candles out into the wild blue yonder, they’re going to real people with real problems and concerns, and we’re all a part of that.” So good and then, one of my previous coworkers, Leah, she used to serve on the committee. I texted her, she was our wholesale manager, so she’s the person that interacts with the business owners that carry our candles and then sell them in their store.
She said, “One story I remember. A wholesale customer in 2022 had experienced a fire at her business and informed me of that when I had sent her a wholesale promotional email. I asked her if our team could pray for her and add her to the weekly prayer list. She was so thankful that our team cared enough to intentionally pray for her and she shared how much that meant to her. She knew we didn’t just see her as a sale but that we really wanted to support her and see her succeed.”
“That story encouraged me to be bolder in asking other customers if we could pray for them whenever they shared their personal struggles, and I realized we were sending a unique message that we weren’t just another supplier to these folks. They knew they had a relationship with the ACC team itself.” And then I’ll conclude with this one. This is Jeremiah, he is our chemist because we make scents, so of course, we have a full-time chemist on our team.
[0:17:04.8] JR: I love it, this is so cool. For those wondering what your kids are going to do with that chemistry degree.
[0:17:09.2] BW: Yeah.
[0:17:09.6] JR: Here you go.
[0:17:09.4] BW: Exactly, absolutely. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry and here he is.
[0:17:13.8] JR: That’s amazing.
[0:17:14.3] BW: “As an employee, in most work environments, the emphasis is not to waste company money, which includes your time. It impacts me by demonstrating the authenticity of our company values and that our company leaders also believe these values. We spent time as a company to pray for our customers and each other because we know it is a far more value and impact than our task list at work. We demonstrate we trust God with how we use our time as a company.” So, I thought that was awesome.
[0:17:40.3] JR: I love this so much. So, you just finished reading The Sacredness of Secular Work. You know I talk in there, towards the end on how to make disciples effectively in a post-Christian context. You know, it’s this idea of kind of outing ourselves as Christians and how we do that, and one idea I tossed out there was like, “Hey, just ask your coworkers, your customers if you can pray for them, right?”
[0:18:00.8] BW: Yes.
[0:18:01.4] JR: I mentioned this and I’m curious if you're going to prove me wrong here. I said, “Hey, I’ve never known anyone to be offended when asked if I can pray for them.” Have you guys ever had a customer be like, “How dare you ask if you could pray for me?” Have you had that?
[0:18:17.6] BW: Not to my knowledge, no, and to your point, there is something about prayer. So, you know, sometimes, we’ll post scriptures or hymns on you know, occasional Sunday, things like that and sometimes we do get hate mail like, “Please leave religion out of business.” But when you're talking about, “Hey, can I pray for you?” And this is why I’m so excited about this idea and this concept.
And I think it could just be so much built to be such a bigger thing at ACC than it is today because what I love about the future of work is emotional wellbeing and mental wellbeing is becoming very welcomed and supported in the workplace. Here’s why I think that is so awesome because before, I was just focused on physical safety and taking care of people, getting a paycheck, and being happy.
Now I’m like, “Okay, if we’re focused on emotional and mental wellbeing, and employees are reviving that, it’s not that much harder to take one more step into spiritual wellbeing.” And that is when the real soul care conversations begin and that is really exciting to me as an employer, as an entrepreneur. I’m like, maybe I’m too optimistic about the future but I’m like, “Lord, this is pretty exciting stuff.” In this post-Christian world, I’m actually more excited about the future than I am today.
[0:19:36.1] JR: A hundred percent. I couldn’t agree more. I think it’s going to give us more opportunities to share the light of Christ. All right, so you said a couple of minutes ago, you hoped this would become a bigger thing in ACC, praying for customers. How so? What are you dreaming of, what could that look like practically?
[0:19:49.9] BW: Yeah. So, this is something that the Lord’s really been prompting my imagination about. So, we sent candle packages to about 50,000 annual customers a year and we’re continuing to grow but right now, like the opening of prayer requests or, “Can I pray for you?” It’s kind of ad hoc, like a social media post in there, in the bottom of an email, an occasional blog, but I don't know.
It’s not that imaginative yet but one of the things I thought about is, “How cool it would be, you know, in each candle pack that goes out?” Because they might just order a candle online and that’s good and there’s some information about the candles or what have you but it would be kind of cool if somehow we incorporated some type of literature. Not like you know, like a smiley face like –
[0:20:33.7] JR: Yeah, not a track.
[0:20:34.7] BW: Yeah, not a track. But like, maybe like along with the branding, like somewhere in that message to that customer if we could use generative AI to like, really customize that message. We could also include maybe an organic blurb about, “Hey, like, if you need prayer, here’s a link to — this is a team of people that will be happy to join you in prayer” or whatever. I’m not sure exactly yet but like, there’s just, I mean, 50,000 people.
I mean, it’s like it’s so many folks, so many. It’s just mindboggling to think that we have this type of platform and influence to really engage folks if they want to engage with us but wouldn’t it be nice to ask?
[0:21:12.3] JR: I love this so much. It’s so good, it’s so practical. You’re convicting me. I mean, people email me a lot, you know what’s interesting? I actually get some really heavy emails from listeners and readers because they don’t know who else to turn to, to share this stuff with, and when we receive those, I pray for every single one of them but I am not proactive about this and what a missed opportunity to bless people and intercede on their behalf.
And so, man, I’ll just say it now, if you’ve got something you want a prayer for, email me at jordan@jordanraynor.com, it’s my personal email and I’d be happy to pray for those things along with my team and I am going to be committed to think about what this looks like in a more systematic way, not to use cold language, you get my heart I think but –
[0:21:54.1] BW: Yep.
[0:21:54.8] JR: No, I love this so much and I love – this is such a great example. It’s such a great answer to a question I’ve been trying to pose more and more to our listeners, which is what in your business, what in your work can only be fully explained by your commitment to the ways of Jesus, right? Because by God’s calm and grace, there’s going to be a lot of similarities between how you, Brittany, run a candle company and how a non-Christian would run a similar candle company, right?
But there ought to be some things that are different, there are going to be some things that are distinct. You talked about prayer, it’s one great example. Can you think of anything else within how you lead this venture that can only be explained by your faith?
[0:22:34.4] BW: Yeah, that’s a really great thought-provoking question and I’m a part of this Indianapolis-Indiana, like practice guild. I know you’re familiar with Proxis. That’s been helpful to be in that community of other fellow entrepreneurs and venture builders to help us think through scripture and what does that look like in terms of proactivity to incorporate into our business that may be hard to really imagine on your own or/and your small group with your local church of maybe, no other entrepreneurs.
So, that group’s been really pivotal at helping validate some of the stuff I’ve already done but also challenge me to, “Oh, you’re kind of hanging out and just more ethical.” Really, what we want to do is how do we think about this redemptively, like really, really going past beyond just the pure ethical to this redemptive frame.
[0:23:26.0] JR: And proactively blessing people.
[0:23:28.1] BW: Yes, exactly. One of the things I did a few years ago, which it’s like not business smart but I had to do it was I had been leasing spaces to make candles for my team for years, and for warehouses, traditional warehouses, you do not have air conditioning. I don’t know what it’s like down there in Florida or states that are more in this like heavy heat but in the Midwest, it’s you kind of just live with it.
So, it is typical for the warehouse to get to 90 to 100 degrees during the summer, it has heat but it does not have air conditioning, and you cannot find a place to lease with air conditioning for the comfort of your team. I mean, you’re in there all day and you are doing physical hard labor. It’s not like you’re sitting there and like have a fan blowing on you. There are things you can do to help circulate the air.
But when you are making candles and the wax is hot, by the way, it’s hot, it’s like working in a kitchen, it’s so uncomfortable and I did that for years with my team and the only way I could think of was to either install it myself, which would be hundreds of thousands of dollars for a place we don’t own, I’m like, “We’re going to have to build a place. We’re going to have to build a place or renovate a place.” And that’s what we did.
And we bought two buildings, one is completely redone. It has air conditioning and I remember talking to the construction manager and I was trying to find the project was becoming really expensive and we’re trying to find places to cut and I talked about the air conditioning. I’ll never forget this and he’s like, “It would save us tens of thousands of dollars.” Which is what we’re looking for.
And we were thinking, “Oh, my goodness, what am I going to do?” And we didn’t cut it and tens of thousands of dollars, it’s a lot of money but in the business world, I had to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars, months and months of labor to make in profit tens of thousands of dollars to be able to pay for this, and then let alone, you know, the air conditioning bill for the years to come but we have it and we’ve had it for three years and it was, it’s so comfortable.
It was so comfortable and there’s no other space like it. There is no other space like it, it’s very not business-smart to do, it is a capital investment that does not get you a return other than the comfort of your team. That’s it, that’s all it gets you.
[0:25:41.7] JR: You know, paying for that makes no sense but with Jesus, it makes all the sense in the world of just proactively seeking to bless our teams. I love this. By the way, we were connected by a member of your Indianapolis Guild, my very good friend, David Block, who was our guest on this show way, way, way back in episode 27 and I asked him this question about you.
I said, “Hey, man, like what is it about Brittany that can only fully be explained by her commitment to Christ?” And he pointed to your team. So, I think it’s interesting but he was talking about something different I think. He said, quote, and I am going to read it. He said this to me in an email. He said, “You will tear up when you hear Brittany explain the options that are available to these workers outside of Antique Candle Company.” So, Brittany, tell me more. What’s he talking – what’s David talking about here?
[0:26:26.3] BW: Yeah.
[0:26:26.7] JR: And no pressure but you have to make me cry. So, I mean, you know, no big deal.
[0:26:31.0] BW: Oh, my goodness, yeah. I think the story he’s referring to is the folks that we’ve hired. So, I live in Lafayette, Indiana, which is home of Purdue University, and so people think of it as the research town and academic town, which it is but it’s also a town of folks without degrees and it is a heavy, heavy manufacturing town. So, there are lots and lots of manufacturers, we manufacture cars, we manufacture trailers.
We make the engines that go into large industrial equipment. We make a lot of stuff, there is so many businesses here and they employ thousands of the population, each factory does. If you do not have a college degree and you want to stay in Lafayette, Indiana, which is where your family is and probably where you grew up and you also want to provide for your family well to make enough of a living and have health and benefits, there’s really only one option available to you and it’s to go to one of these factories and I love manufacturing.
I absolutely love it, I love touring these places, I have friends who work there but for those who are on the assembly lines, it is what praxis would refer to as exploitive. It is focused purely on the ROI and the employees are a number and they have KPIs to meet for their stakeholders and what this means purely put — is their bodies and their minds are sacrificed for the good of the product and I was in an interview with someone.
And it wasn’t the first one of its kind but it just really hit me. We were interviewing for like candlemaker or warehouse coordinator, one of our you know, warehouse positions, and like you know, “Why are you looking for work? Why are you looking to change your job?” And he said, “I have a daughter and she is 11 years old and I’m on second shift, and so I miss the evenings with her when she comes home from school.”
“And they just told us that the waitlist to get to the first shift is seven years and she’ll be 18, so what’s the point?” And it just really, really resonated with me and I have there’s like a whole little club at work. There’s like six or seven of them that come from one of the factories in town, it’s the best paid, and they have great benefits. They pay them well but they are treated so horribly, so-so horribly.
Like they didn’t – it took them like six months of them hearing from me or management like, “Hey, how’s it going? How are you doing?” Like they didn’t believe that that was authentic, that there was true care there. So, we love to bring those folks on, they’re great workers, they’re smart, and they get a voice into how we do things. Since we’re a small business, it helps but oh my goodness, it’s like there are thousands of folks with those stories.
I wish I could hire all of them because life doesn’t have to be that way and the business could find another way. They could find another way.
[0:29:15.9] JR: Yeah, I love this so much. So, you talked about these team members coming from warehouses where productivity was it, it’s all that mattered, hit your numbers, whatever, and yet, one of your core values within Antique Candle Company is all about working hard and oh my gosh, nothing made me happier than reading your core values, riffing off of the great Rick Ross. “Every day we’re hustling, hustling, hustling.” I love it.
So, how do you think about this differently, right? You are asking your team to work hard and yet, you are blessing them by caring for different people. How do you manage that tension between hard work and care of your team and rest? How do you think about this differently than other employers who are employing warehouse workers in your area?
[0:30:00.1] BW: Great question, what is it? Well, I mean, one of the things that we really focus on is building a sense of belonging with our team, giving them a voice into how we do procedures or how do we – how should we build this piece of equipment, should we buy this piece of equipment, does it help, or does it not help? So, there’s a lot of culture building that natively, just my personality, I just love to connect with folks on a personal level.
But with that occurring and with others behaving in that way to fit the norm of the soul of the company, I think that just – I mean, work is a gift from the Lord. Like, He designed us to enjoy work and so when I think when they’re respected and valued and given a platform to share how they think we could work, I don’t know if better is the right word but it creates a really strong culture of connectiveness and also like confronting ideas like healthy confrontation.
Like, “I know we said we’re going to do that but that didn’t work really well. Here is why I think it didn’t.” That is really fruitful, I love when those conversations happen, and I am not sure exactly what those – what that sauce is. I am having trouble articulating maybe with you, Jordan, but I do know this, in the last three years, we recognized it’s a great place to work. I mean, our team voted for that and they put all these metrics in.
And then last year, well, our 2022, which is the last time that they did the results, we were in the national top 20. We were number 20, we barely got in there but I took it. National top 20 for advanced manufacturing in logistics for small and medium-sized businesses. So, something is occurring and it may be just like completely divine, and it’s hard to even describe. There is a spiritual component with what we tolerate and what we don’t within the organization, within the team.
[0:31:50.7] JR: Hey, I loved in your bio you’re riffing off of Ephesians 3:20, where you said, “The Lord is not measurably more than what Brittney’s original business plan could have ever imagined.” Now that you’ve seen some of the immeasurably more, right? 10 years after founding this company, what advice would you give to the Christian founder who is in year one, right? He can’t even, he can’t even imagine what that immeasurable more might be.
[0:32:17.4] BW: Well, I think it would be to ask yourself, “Do you love what you’re doing?” I assume if you’re in year one of your business, you love what you are doing, which is why you want to continue doing it and you are thinking about the future but I do still think it’s a really good question to ask and maybe this is too businessy but another thing I wanted to ask if I were in your shoes was, okay, assume this grows the way I want it to grow.
Assume it grows past, assume it becomes bigger than what I thought it would be. Like, I didn’t plan for this, this wasn’t in the business plan. Play that out as much as you can in your mind to see if you could somehow forecast in the future, “Will I still love what I do?” For example, I have this other business idea and I’ll just share it because I don’t know, if someone steals it, that’s fine but you know, it would just be great to see.
[0:33:08.0] JR: Free business ideas here on the Mere Christians Podcast, yeah.
[0:33:10.8] BW: Yeah, like I have thought about like, “Oh my gosh, it would be so fun to do a pumpkin truck.” And where you grow heirloom pumpkins, they come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. They’re beautiful and they’re really popular in the fall and how cool would it be to you know, go to festivals or to have like preorders and folks just order from you and I’ve had this idea of I want to be a pumpkin farmer, and then I was researching.
Okay, because I help my grandma and grandpa do this but I have never done it myself and they’re just hobby farmers but I’m like, “Okay, let me think through this. Okay, assuming it’s really popular, assuming I have 5,000 customers or 10,000 customers, what does that look like? Oh, oh no, that means I would need a lot more land.” Because the average fruit-bearing pumpkin plant has like three to four fruit if I am doing really well.
And each fruit needs this many square feet. Okay, that means I would need these many pumpkins per customer. Okay, how much should I charge? What’s the profit? Am I happy with that? Am I not? Do I still love what I do when I have 100 acres of a pumpkin farm?
[0:34:12.5] JR: It’s a very different thing.
[0:34:14.2] BW: Because it is different than the pumpkin truck. It’s a completely different thing and that’s the reality of Antique Candle Co. I started making candles in my kitchen, I was in my kitchen for years. I loved it, it was fun, and then I started getting customers, and I was making candles the same way for 500 candles but then the demand increased to 2,000 candles. I’m like, “Well, I can’t make 2,000 the same way as I make 500.”
So now, I need to purchase some legitimate equipment. Okay, now all of a sudden, it’s a factory. It’s a micro-factory, how do I feel about that? Now, I have to learn about operations and also safety, like people get hurt and so what does that look like first and now, it’s of a factory, you know? Like, so really forecasting what it could be and how do you feel about that, do you still love that, why or why not?
[0:34:59.0] JR: Now that you’ve seen evidence that God can indeed do immeasurably more than you asked or imagined, if you were starting something new today, how would your prayers change? What would be different about how you prayed based on your experience of that truth?
[0:35:12.0] BW: I don’t know if it would change that much but the one thing that just comes to mind is yeah, how I’m pregnant right now, which is, “Lord, what do you mean when you say steward it well? Could You help me imagine this in my mind? Give me the thought, give me the heart, give me the space to know what You mean.” It’s just kind of simply that. I don’t know in terms of change, yeah, how it changed for –
[0:35:32.4] JR: What do you think that looks like over the next 10 years, right? As you are praying through that when you think of stewardship of this business, where does your mind go? Is it about further serving your team? Is it – where is your mind tracking that?
[0:35:44.7] BW: Right now, the Lord’s really been challenging my thinking and imagining the tens of thousands of customers that I never see. The folks I may not know their name, the folks where I don’t know their stories unless I practically ask and then they engage but most of them won’t. So, what do I do with that as just a mere Christian who owns a candle business, sending delightful pumpkin candles to all who want them for their homes, what does that mean?
Of course, it’s good and it’s also been – it’s amazing and so how can I even elevate that delightfulness with that, I don’t know, like customer to where it’s really, really special in ways kind of like the candle testing program was completely new. That sounds like we’re not unique to where Exploding Kittens did that too but Lord, help me imagine something just so delightful, so imaginative, so fun to where it just helps reflect His kingdom.
[0:36:42.2] JR: That’s good, that’s really good. It’s a really good answer. All right, Brittany, hey, we round out every episode of this show with the same three questions. Number one, if we open up your Amazon order history, which books would we see you buying over and over and over again to give away to friends, family, maybe your team members?
[0:36:59.3] BW: Yes, it’s a business book. It is a business novel, it’s called, The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, I think, and Jeff Cox. It introduces people to the theory of constraints, it’s really, really interesting and I think it was written in the 70s or 80s. I’m not sure but it’s given to me.
[0:37:16.3] JR: Yeah, it’s an old book, yeah.
[0:37:17.4] BW: Yeah, super old but I’ve given that book away more than any other book. It’s really good.
[0:37:21.5] JR: I love it. It’s a great answer. Hey, who would you want to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith shapes the work they do in the world?
[0:37:27.8] BW: Oh man, part of my mind wanders to almost kind of two things, maybe more on the macro level like someone who works at one of the federal banks or an economist, like someone who’s really kind of in the finance sector I think would be really interesting to hear about only because of like money and God and like some of that thinking there would be really interesting to explore, I love that.
The other idea I had is I just got back from a month-long trip in Europe and I really only spent – I spent a lot of time in one place, in Cornwall, which is the southernmost part of the UK and I hung out with some folks after church and they were retirees but it was so interesting hearing how, I’m like, “They’re not going to work, what’s their work? you know, what are they doing with their time and how are they imagining that, and specifically for them, a post-Christian world?”
And so that was really interesting. I think it would be so cool to you know, meet other folks like that and expand upon folks who are using their time may be outside of the traditional work norms and outside missions in a post-Christian world not in America what does that look like, and I think that might forecast some of our future work here too, you know? Jordan, when you are not will always be working doing something.
We’re all doing it but work is good, so what does that look like when you’re maybe not in the traditional workplace?
[0:38:47.5] JR: Oh man, I love that. So, PSA for anyone listening who is a “retiree” but because scripture doesn’t commend retirement, you are expending yourself productively in the good works that God has prepared for you to do, if that’s you, let us know. Go to jordanraynor.com/mc and fill out the survey we have there and same thing on the economist side. I really like that answer a lot, I’ve never thought of that before.
All right, Brittany, you are talking to this global audience of mere Christians, very diverse vocationally, what they share is a desire to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others, what’s one final thing you’d like to say or reiterate to those listeners before we sign off?
[0:39:27.1] BW: I suppose a little bit about what we talked about earlier, work is a gift, and in the non-Christian world, it’s a means to provide for family, which is also good in itself but it’s a gift. It’s a gift to us and while burdensome at times, I think it’s just really fun to be able to do the work, whatever that looks like.
[0:39:45.3] JR: And I think the Father delights watching His children enjoy the gift, right? Play with it, enjoy it, lean into it, and man, you’re doing that. Brittany, I would just want to commend you for the exceptional work you’re doing for the glory of God and the good of others, for thinking not just ethically about this business but thinking redemptively and how to bless people, how to better love image bearers in your community, outside of your community, and your customers, such a great example for all of us.
To follow, friends, if you want to check out these amazing candles, go to antiquecandleco.com. By the way, this feels like a really big miss that I didn’t follow up with this. Brittany, what does heaven going to smell like? Come on, do you have any special spiritual insights into this? What are we dealing with on the new earth?
[0:40:31.4] BW: Man, I’m not sure because there’s just so many scents. I don’t know, I’m sure the Lord will figure, like has it all planned out, and it will be just so delightful.
[0:40:39.6] JR: Well, listen, based on how you are stewarding this venture, I would not be shocked to see Antique Candle Company candles riding the ships of Tarsiers in the new earth.
[0:40:48.3] BW: It would be great. Right now, we are imagining, “Oh, what would that look like?” To, you know, some of the – in the scripture, it talks about different scents and oils used that are maybe more ancient inspired. Frankincense and Myrrh probably the most popular well-known one but yeah, we’re just kind of imagining that and thinking about, “Oh, can we do something like that?” That would be kind of a fun campaign. I’m not sure, we’ll see but it’s fun to imagine.
[0:41:11.5] JR: I love it. Brittany, thanks for hanging with us today.
[0:41:13.6] BW: Thank you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:41:15.4] JR: Hey, I mentioned it in the episode but it bears repeating it here. If you would love to share how the gospel’s influencing your work, I want to hear from you. Go to jordanraynor.com/mc, you’re going to see a couple of questions that my producers will ask you answered. You can submit answers to those questions right there. Thank you, guys, so much for listening, I’ll see you next week.
[END]