Show & Tell and moving from Surface > Serious > Spiritual
The impact of knowing that God cares about your work and not just how you spend your lunch break, how to use Show & Tell for grown-ups to move from Surface > Serious > Spiritual, and how to practically make people feel valued beyond their productivity.
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[0:00:04] 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 pharmacy aides, factory workers, and energy brokers. That's the question we explore every week. Today, I'm posing it to Candice Levert. She's an IT Operations Manager in a large software company who recently joined me to talk about the impact of knowing that God cares about the work itself and not just how you spend your lunch break at work.
We talked about how to use show and tell for grown-ups to move from the surface to the serious to the spiritual with your coworkers. Finally, we talked about how to practically make people feel valued beyond their productivity within your office. I think you guys are going to love this conversation with my friend Candice Levert.
[EPISODE]
[0:01:09] JR: Candice Levert, longtime listener, first-time caller. Welcome to the Mere Christians podcast.
[0:01:15] CL: Thanks so much, Jordan.
[0:01:16] JR: You told me before we started recording, you've listened to every episode of the show, which boggles my mind. I can't listen to myself talk for more than a few minutes at a time. I can't imagine.
[0:01:25] CL: It’s different to hear yourself.
[0:01:26] JR: Like when people tell me they listen to me read audiobooks. I'm like, “That sounds exhausting.” All right, let's talk about your work, Candice. You're an Operations Manager, an IT Operations Manager. You work at a really large software company. I just want you to take our listeners inside of your world a little bit, and instead of asking you just abstractly, what do you do? I actually thought an interesting way to do this would be to talk through the first big project you took on in your company, which you described as total “chaos, initially.” Tell us about how you brought order out of chaos there. I think it's a pretty good window into your world.
[0:02:06] CL: Yeah. I'd love to. So, picture, imagine coming in day one on a new job. I was brought in as telecom analyst at the time, and global company operations all over the world. One of the biggest things that they needed to bring somebody in for and it ended up being me was that the very specific and narrow thing that they needed, but it was causing all sorts of issues all through the company more than you would even imagine, but the actual telecom services, they were not being paid on time or properly.
When you think of a global company, especially pre-COVID, that's another thing you got to think about me. So, pre-COVID, such a big part of what an international global company is, is their physical presence in all these different locations all over the world. So, in these different offices in different cities, different countries, every single office has to have their proper setup to function, so they've all got telecom surfaces of some sort. What I was focused on was the internet service and the phone service, right? Pretty critical.
[0:03:29] JR: Yeah. Pretty important.
[0:03:31] CL: Yeah. Pretty important when you're the person sitting in the cubicle in one of those offices.
[0:03:35] JR: This does sound like an ancient time though.
[0:03:37] CL: It does.
[0:03:38] JR: Pre-COVID, talking about phone lines. I mean, the internet less so but – yeah.
[0:03:42] CL: Yes, definitely. Just like the volume of offices, right? It’s totally changed, like night and day.
[0:03:49] JR: Back then, this is a big deal.
[0:03:50] CL: But back then, yes, huge deal. Again, because it's pre-COVID, everybody's in the office. They're not just there as a building like some of them are right now, but everybody's there. Everybody's working out at those offices. I come in. I walk in the door. Day one, and they say, “Okay, so telecom services, internet and phone, all over the world, they're failing. They are going down due to nonpayment.” If you can even believe it.
[0:04:19] JR: Phones are being shut off, because this big, huge global company that has plenty of money to pay just doesn't have systems in place to pay the bills.
[0:04:26] CL: That's right. I came in to work through that problem and get it under control. I got to work with all these local folks internally within the company and say, “Okay, what's your invoicing look like? Who's getting it? How does it come? Things that sound even more like ancient times. Some of this stuff is still coming in paper in the mail.
[0:04:54] JR: What a world. Goodness.
[0:04:57] CL: Yes. Things like that, that maybe nobody had ever thought about it or thought about changing it or wanted to change it, so here we are. It was not a hundred years ago, but just a little ways ago, and those things were still taking place. To fast forward, I was able to get ahold of people all over the world internally, find out what their current state was for how invoices were coming in, get a grasp on what all the services were, and who all the providers, suppliers, and vendors were. I worked with what I had, which was a spreadsheet.
I made the longest spreadsheet of all time and just started adding line after line, detail after detail, column after column to get centralized, and get it known. It was just unknown and out there floating and being able to have it down to a well-oiled machine eventually where I was centrally, right, managing exactly what telecom services were having at every single office throughout the company and the world. Yeah.
[0:06:08] JR: This is super helpful. Listener, the next time you're at church or a bar and somebody introduces themselves as an IT operations manager, you got some idea of all the craziness that's going to this. Candice. I loved this in the pre-interview we did. You said that, “God is the God of order.” Because of that, “It matters to him that I do that here in this little tiny corner of the world.” Taking disconnected telecom billing systems and centralizing, etc. I couldn't agree more, right?
I know this is a pretty new concept to you — that your work, that God cares about the work itself or as you put it, I love the way you said this. You said, “God cares about what you're doing and not just what you do on your lunch break.” So good. I'm curious. How is that realization, that God cares about your work, that it's not just a platform for evangelism, right, but it is good in and of itself. What impact has that realization had on your life and work?
[0:07:13] CL: It's been huge. I think when there is either indirect or direct concept being, I think, modeled for me or even talking to me, and as a Christian community, it could come out this way where it's, you go to work and there are a few things that it's good for, right, and do a good job can maybe be a side note, but also make sure you're evangelizing to your coworkers, and that's probably going to happen on your lunch break, because, oh, by the way, you should do your work well, right? But that has always given me this feeling of welp —
I guess what I do the whole rest of the day, and gosh, a lot of hours of my week, which adds up to a lot of time of my life, doesn't really matter to the kingdom like that, right? It matters for making a living and all of these things, but it doesn't matter towards, and we're not going to call it ministry, we're not going to call it missions, we're not going to call it kingdom work, because it's just at an IT company and that's just what you do for “work.”
It has made a big difference to think about, no, no, no, every minute of my life is something that matters to God, that in our concepts of like the basics that we go into in this community, which is God worked. He's a worker, he's a creator, he doesn't just put up with us working, but he loves it, he's a part of it. It’s his thing. That gets me excited, that gets me a different kind of motivation and drive to do my native writing.
[0:09:04] JR: Yeah. It's so good. I love it. Yeah. It’s that leap of – and this is what I was really trying to do with The Sacredness of Secular Work, move the faith and work conversation beyond where I think we've been for decades, at least of, okay, our work is a platform for ethics, excellence and evangelism, right? Basically, 1% of my time it works, because I can use it to show the gospel. It's like what about the other 99%? It's like, no, God delights in the 99%, the 100%, so long as we're doing it with love and then a God-honoring way.
Speaking of which, because of your work done in love and excellence, your work on that project we were talking about just a couple of minutes ago, because of your excellence there, you were thrust into this managerial position to use your own language. I think that's the word you use to me, and you were putting that position with very little training, very little mentorship. I can't imagine how overwhelming that would have been, especially at a huge company, but I'm curious if that was a fruitful time for you spiritually, even if it was a hard time professionally, because you were just so painfully and obviously aware of your inadequacies, for lack of a better word, your weaknesses as you were entering into that higher level role.
[0:10:16] CL: Yes, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I had a lot of support, which is it's funny. It's one of the only reasons I even said yes to it, because there was even a version of myself that might have said, no, thanks. But yeah, I was excited to take the challenge. I knew it was going to be really hard, and it delivered, but like you're saying, it was very much – especially going from like the end of my era of doing the project that we talked about, it did end up being a well-oiled machine.
I’m thankful to God for that, but because of that, I very much got to cruise. So, going from cruising in some ways to going very, very, very deep into, okay, boom, you're a manager, you're not only managing, but you're managing the team you used to be a part of, right? That change was really like 180. It was something that pushed me towards, okay, you're going to wake up, you're going to go into this, and it's going to be hard. You're not going to know exactly what's coming, and you're going to have to rely on, you know.
There are some things that I have gotten to do before this and support that I have, right, so I could lean on those things, but at the end of the day, I had to say, “Okay, Lord. It's me and you today, because I don't know who is going to be in what mood.” Right? Like, there's just so many factors when you're managing people, and it definitely was one of those things where I was even prepped spiritually, I think, to take the job, like I said. It's been exciting to see that like all that happened in this timing that –
[0:12:07] JR: Hey, listen, when I asked you in the pre-interview, how your faith is most significantly shaping, how you do what you do. We just talked a few minutes ago about how what you do matters to God. You're bringing order out of chaos. When I asked you how your faith is shaping, how you do what you do. I loved what you pointed to. You pointed to the community and culture that you're really trying to build on this new team that you inherited, this team that you're managing. Why is that so important to you to build a culture in which that team feels really cared for?
[0:12:38] CL: Yeah. It's a big deal for me. I think it started with the fact that, well, number one, we're IT with an IT. Any stereotype you know about that.
[0:12:47] JR: Yeah. I love it.
[0:12:48] CL: About this, you know, as far as people, and interactions, and people being people, people, right?
[0:12:54] JR: Yeah.
[0:12:55] CL: Like, that's just not our culture. Being on a team like that and being a people person has always been like, okay, where's the check-in? Where's the community? Where's the chit-chat at the beginning of the meeting? It's usually missing. So as – and I have a really great boss who has supported me so much. He would always talk about, like think about the fact that you're an employee too, right? I'm an employee and I was feeling that missing. I'm like, I can't be the only one. If somebody's going to give me a managerial position for some crazy reason. The first thing I'm seeing, if I can possibly do it, I want to try and implement some of those things that I was missing for myself.
As you know, I run an international team, so not a single person that's here at the United States, they're all over the world. that makes it all remote and that makes it very, I don't know, difficult for me. That might not be hard for everybody, but it's been hard for me. It's not people I've met, it's not the people I get to see on any regular basis. I have literally never met them. With all of those obstacles, I'm like there's still got to be a way. Somebody's doing this somewhere.
I've just tried to implement things that do promote community and are able to get us out of all we talk about is work, etc. It's just been fun to see what we can and can't do and what we're growing in, but it matters so much to me because I do think that it was something that I was really wanting and looking for before I was in a position to implement it. The second I could, I was like, all right, I know nobody's asking this of me, which they genuinely were not, but I was like, I'm excited about this and committed to it. I want to make sure that we get there.
[0:14:52] JR: Yeah. We could talk all day about the business case for investing in culture. The business case for investing in people beyond their productivity. I want to hear you make a spiritual case for this. Is there a spiritual case for you coming to this position, not being asked to necessarily invest in people beyond their productivity, but choosing to do that. Is this part of what it looks like for you to follow Jesus practically in your role managing this team?
[0:15:22] CL: It is. It definitely is.
[0:15:23] JR: Yeah. How so?
[0:15:25] CL: Just in the sense that, because it wasn't being asked of me, I genuinely could have done my job. Any day that I was in this position and in this role, I could have done this without it. It's funny to say like to go above and beyond, sounds like that thing, but like it is. It's something where it just was so clear to me that, I mean, even before I had a managerial position, I felt like I wish I could do something. I think that's what was so clear to me that as soon as I could, that I was going to implement at least the basics, right, pretty early on. Then try and keep growing in that as much as possible.
Yeah. It's like we matter, you matter. Sure, maybe we – I don't know, have different locations in different countries, and different traditions and all of that, but we have a lot in common. We work together. It really does, I think, influence me on the manager side and them on being managed and being a part of a team. I think it impacts us so much to come to work and know that there's not only the tasks that I need to do and check off available to you. It's almost like available to you, right, like you could come to me for those things if you want. If you would much rather not, that is okay, but if you got questions, or concerns, or even just want to talk like you should know that you can and that's available to you and come to me.
[0:17:02] JR: Yeah. I've written about this before. I think one way that we mere Christians could be distinct in the workplace is we should be leading teams that feel deeply valued as people, just for being made in the image of God and not just for their productivity, that we care for people as image bearers and not just what they can do for us as managers or us as entrepreneurs. Candice, I want you to – we've talked about this a little abstractly. Let's talk about it a little bit more concretely. What specifically have you done within your team to make them feel valued beyond their productivity? What does that look like?
[0:17:41] CL: Yup. The first thing that I did when I started the position was, I implemented one-on-ones. If you can believe it, there weren't any. One-on-ones with each person that I directly manage. Then pretty quickly after that, I was like, “We're not doing these without being on camera.” We don't get to see each other, we don't get to go grab coffee, but we're going to at least see each other's faces. Eventually, once people get more comfortable, then they'll start showing you maybe something on the camera, like they'll show you, or do a little show and tell for you depending on what's going on.
When you catch up with them, they might get to show you something, right? There's just a little bit more interaction there. That's been really good. You never know the other side of it. Who knows if everybody's like, “No, thanks.” But I do believe a lot of people have leaned into them and appreciate getting the check-in and getting true time of their own. I always tell them like, “This time is for you. So, what do you got? We could go whatever direction you like.”
[0:18:47] JR: Okay, so hang on. Let me clarify.
[0:18:48] CL: Yeah.
[0:18:49] JR: Those are one-on-ones. First of all, how frequently are they?
[0:18:51] CL: We are doing one-on-ones, once a month, because I have a fairly large team. Yeah.
[0:18:57] JR: Yeah. Sure.
[0:18:58] CL: Yeah. We do it once a month.
[0:18:58] JR: Okay, you do them once a month. There’s no agenda? So, this could be anything personal or professional. Is that right?
[0:19:05] CL: That's right.
[0:19:05] JR: Okay. Interesting. Okay. Great. I love it. Do people bring up personal stuff?
[0:19:10] CL: Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. It has taken time, of course, just like any group of people or whatever. It takes time for people to even want to share anything, but yeah, there have been recent one-on-ones where we just catch up, we just talk a little time and that was it, and we say, “Is there anything else?” It's like, “No, I don't have anything else to talk about. This was it.” Yeah, it's been fun to see those morph a little bit, like sometimes I'll send a prompt, right, of some sort, sometimes it is a work-related one, sometimes it is more of like something –
[0:19:42] JR: Give me an example of some of those prompts.
[0:19:44] CL: Oh, examples of prompts.
[0:19:46] JR: Especially a personal one. That'd be great.
[0:19:48] CL: Yeah. I mean, little hanging fruit, right? I'll keep them really simple in something that's easy to latch on to. At the end of the year, I might say like, “What are your plans for – and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to do this, because we don't even have the same holidays. We don't have the same breaks. We don't have anything in common, but you might come to the end of the year and say, on the work side, you might have them reflect back on, “Hey, what was one thing that was like a win from this past year that you're super excited to accomplish.” But then on the personal side like, tell me something that you have planned that you were looking forward to or it’s going to be really fun, like –
[0:20:28] JR: Yeah. That’s good. That's good. Did you listen – well, you've listened every episode. One of my favorite episodes is with Sean Kouplen at Regent Bank. One of the fastest-growing banks in America. Yeah. So, his team, I can't remember the exact case. I think it's weekly. They have mandatory. Every manager has mandatory one-on-ones with their team. The only rule is work is the only thing not in the agenda, right?
[0:20:50] CL: I love that. Yeah.
[0:20:51] JR: I like yours too, where work can be on the agenda, but you're allowing the employee to dictate what that agenda is. They could take it professionally. They could take it personally. I like that a lot. All right. What else are you doing to make your team feel valued beyond their productivity? We talked about one-on-ones. Give us a couple more things that you're doing.
[0:21:10] CL: Yeah. Like I said, under the years, a good one where you, well, be on the same page of ending the year and looking back on it and then looking ahead towards the next one. The last two years, I think I've tried to have at least some type of, of course, I say gathering, but virtual gathering that is not actually work-related, right? It's closest thing you can have to a party, but you're virtual. A lot of times, so both times that I've done it, it's been pretty fun. I like that it doesn't happen often, because it gets people, they don't get bored of it or tired of it. They just get, okay, like we have this once a year towards the end of the year.
I think my favorite part of doing those has been some, I think I may have looked this up and found it somewhere. I'm sure I did not come up with it myself, but we do a show in tell. It's optional, right? I do know there are some serious introverts on my team. I don't want to make them do anything, but I've been trying to get them to have to be there, right, mandatory like you’re just saying for the other person that has a different version of this. That you know, like please show up, right? We're going to all get together. If you don't want to say anything, that's okay. I encourage people to be on camera, which we don't do very often. Then again, optional, we'll do show and tell.
[0:22:34] JR: I love this.
[0:22:34] CL: I know that sounds, like literally first grade, but –
[0:22:37] JR: It's so good.
[0:22:38] CL: It’s fun, because somebody will literally, like bring their guitar and put it in the camera and tell everybody they're learning it, or somebody else share a picture of where they just went on vacation. Then it goes on and on from there. It does cater a little bit towards the extroverts who are more excited to do stuff like that, but I do try and get everybody to at least be there and participate in.
[0:23:00] JR: I love this so much. I don't know if there's an office episode about show and tell at work, but if not, that was like a swing and a miss. That would be such a great episode.
[0:23:08] CL: Right.
[0:23:10] JR: You know in The Sacredness of Secular Work, I talk in, I mean, the majority of the book is how it matters beyond sharing the gospel, but then the last chapter is like, oh, but hey, we're all called to the great commission and non-optional command for followers to Jesus. One of the things I'm always thinking about in my evangelism efforts with coworkers, with neighbors is looking for opportunities to move from the surface level to the serious and to the spiritual, right? I'm curious if those like show and tell sessions, if there's one-of-ones, if those parties give you new material, if you will, for lack of a less crass term to move from the surface to the serious to the spiritual with those coworkers.
[0:23:49] CL: Definitely. Yeah. The end of the year 2022, I did this for the first time. Super fun. I was glad to see some people participate, got to learn some things that I didn't know about people, etc. I don't remember what I shared, but it was something pretty generic, but it actually, what you're talking about actually happened. I got to do it from my own side. I kind of like geared myself up this year. I was like, “I'm going to share something spiritual.” Like, perfect opportunity. People can share anything they want. I'm not telling them to do anything. I'm just sharing what I'm up to, right?
[0:24:29] JR: Yeah. You're bringing your whole self to work.
[0:24:31] CL: Yeah. right? Like for better or for worst for that term, right?
[0:24:34] JR: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[0:24:37] CL: Yeah. I genuinely had to like bury, like I was pretty nervous about it, just because I didn't want anybody to take it wrong. I had told everybody they needed to come, right, so you could pretty easily have somebody say, I didn't like that. You got shared it on a call like that, but I had been going through an advent. This was like a – I think, it had been like Christianity, today's version of somebody. It was one of the versions of – I had a physical book in my hand. It was like a little pamphlet.
I had been going through it. I was like, “I think I'm going to share this on the show and tell.” I just brought it on camera. I showed them the cover and I said, “I'm a Christian and this is something that's been good for me to do the last couple of weeks. I don't get to do this every year, but I like to be thinking about and immersed in the Christmas season for the actual Christian reasons of it, and biblical things about it and etc.” Right? I came on and said that. I think I was shaking, but everybody said, “Oh, okay, cool.” They just nodded. Nobody said a whole lot.
I think, I can't remember if it was a devotional of yours or something else, but somebody was like, “You got to go public, eventually.” Right? Where it's like you can try and show it, and show it, and show it, but at the same time, especially when you're in a remote environment, you don't get the side conversations and break room stuff. There's got to be a little bit more of a creative way like to tell people you're a Christian, instead of have people, maybe guests or assume, right?
[0:26:23] JR: Yeah. So good.
[0:26:25] CL: I was like, “All right. We're doing it.”
[0:26:26] JR: So good.
[0:26:27] CL: Yeah. That was something that I got to do recently, which was, that was end of last year. I was super exciting. Again, no miraculous conversations after, just going public.
[0:26:39] JR: But that's on your hands. Your job is to be faithful to raise your hand and say, “I'm a follower of Jesus. Hopefully, that makes sense of these efforts that I've been taking to love you and learn about you, my team.” Right? Listen, like we could talk about any conversations around culture and team building, it can sound pretty similar to the rest of the world. I think by God's common grace, that's okay, right? The way a non-believer and a believer build team cultures are going to look pretty similar, but I think what could be distinct is us thinking about, okay, how do we use those ways to point people to the hope that we have in Jesus Christ? I think is a great example, Candice.
Hey, you're a member of the Mere Christians Community that I have the honor of leading. I love that you brought this up in your pre-interview for this episode, just how much your vocational small group of fellow managers in that community has been helpful to you. I'm curious if you could just share maybe just one way in particular, that your small group of fellow Mere Christians has served you well in your current role.
[0:27:40] CL: Yeah. It's the best. I love that group. It's been fun getting to be in Mere Christians Community and be around people that are thinking really deeply about these topics. That would have been enough, but once I finally got to really get integrated into the vocational small groups and found the managers one, I remember very clearly feeling like, oh, this is my people.
[0:28:02] JR: These is my people. There they are.
[0:28:03] CL: There they are. Right, because, I mean, like I really do think that, I don't know, maybe this has just been the experience I've had, but like a lot of the people that are thinking a lot about this and writing about it and all of that, it's usually more like entrepreneurial types, which is great, like I said, like I listened to Mere Christians, like spiritual discipline, because I am learning something every single time. I'm absolutely able to learn from them, but when I got into the manager's vocational small group, I was like, “oh, my people. Yay.”
It just has been good to hear from, learn from and even share with that group to be able to be very particularly interested and excited about these topics, and doing the same type of work that I'm doing. There are a few of us in IT, so it's like, we are all on the same page and working through being part of big organizations, right? We're not the people who can really make the change all the time.
We're always working through how to still apply these principles when we're not the boss or not even close in a lot of our cases, like there's five tiers in between the people, me and the people who actually make change and make big decisions for the work. That's been a big deal to apply it in a way that is not the owners, or the presidents, or whatever of the company. It's just a first level manager, so what can you do in your world? So, yeah.
[0:29:44] JR: This is why we created these vocational small groups. By the way, this sounds like a shameless plug, but by the time we're airing this, actually doors to the community are close. You can't even sign up right now, but let me just rip on this for a second, because I think this is really important. I do think a lot of faith in work content is really geared towards entrepreneurs. My first book was explicitly geared towards Christian entrepreneurs, Called to Create, but I quickly realized after that book. Man, that is not the only niche. I think God's called me to serve in my work.
I want to help Mere Christians, whether you're a manager, or the CEO, or a mechanic in the trades as a solo, a per newer, or we have another vocational small group in the community for individual contributors who don't manage a team, but work in a big company as an individual programmer, whatever. That's where the rubber meets the road. When you are shoulder to shoulder with other people who get your stage, vocationally, who are in the same type of company, and the same type of size of company that you can really start to more practically apply what you're reading in God's word to your specific work.
If you're listening and you want to be a part of this, we get the waiting list up right now at jordanraynor.com/mcc or just form your own group in your own neck of the woods, right? In your own neighborhood, right? Find two or three believers who are doing similar work and being community with them, because I think this is where the stuff that we talk about in this podcast gets really practical, really starts to change your life. Right, Candice?
[0:31:19] CL: Definitely. Yeah. I would say too, get to know what the people at your church do for a living.
[0:31:26] JR: It’s good. It's really good.
[0:31:27] CL: Big deal.
[0:31:28] JR: Yeah.
[0:31:29] CL: They're sitting in the pew next to you, but you probably have no idea where they're going the next day on Monday.
[0:31:34] JR: By the way, that's good advice for the Mere Christians in the pews, and the pastors in the pulpit, so for what it's worth. All right, Candice, you know the drill. Three questions we round out every episode with. Number one, which books do you find yourself gifting most frequently to others?
[0:31:47] CL: All right, of course, Every Good Endeavor. Again, most people are just getting introduced to this topic. It's Faith and Work 101. When people have not gotten here yet, I like to give that book away. The original for me too. Then of course, The Sacredness of Secular Work. I to call it the big leagues.
[0:32:10] JR: Big leagues, let’s go.
[0:32:12] CL: Because it's like much deeper into the topic. It's faith and work, but it is not 101.
[0:32:18] JR: It’s 301.
[0:32:20] CL: Yeah. Call it 301. That's been good and it's fun like a few friends of mine have started it, and gotten through a lot of it, and hearing the feedback of just like the initial shock, which is fun.
[0:32:34] JR: Yup. Oh, yeah.
[0:32:34] CL: Which I think we all have, because they're big, big audacious concepts. But then I think we've talked about this a little bit before, which is that I think the payoff is better, because of that.
[0:32:47] JR: Oh, yeah. I enormous.
[0:32:48] CL: People get to the end and they're like, “Oh, yeah. That was good.” It's been fun to talk with people about that. Going back. So, Called to Create, you just mentioned. I like to give that to friends that are creatives, because I think that's because you started there. I think you could easily see that that's like a group that people don't, I don't know, even like the Christian community doesn't really like support, and like have a good handle on what to do for them, how to support them, what they need to hear. Again, like start with God as a creator and we're in good shape.
[0:33:22] JR: Yes. Exactly.
[0:33:24] CL: Yes. Okay. So, then I mentioned with by Skye Jethani. Then another one has been that we talk a lot about in this community as well, Heaven by Randy Alcorn, all just comes together, right? It all comes together.
[0:33:41] JR: Candice, who do you want to hear on this podcast? Maybe somebody from the Mere Christian community? Maybe not. Who do you want to hear?
[0:33:47] CL: Yeah. Okay. I’ve got like [Inaudible 0:33:49]
[0:33:50] JR: You came prepared. This is so good.
[0:33:51] CL: Yes. When you listen this much to it, you know it's coming, right?
[0:33:56] JR: That's right.
[0:33:57] CL: I'm thinking like more athletes would be fine.
[0:33:59] JR: I know.
[0:34:00] CL: I think they have a really interesting perspective.
[0:34:03] JR: I know. By the way –
[0:34:05] CL: Allison Felix get her on here.
[0:34:08] JR: I put out the bad signal to Allison.
[0:34:11] CL: Yes.
[0:34:11] JR: She's been – Allison's been invited. She's welcome anytime she wants.
[0:34:14] CL: Yeah. Great. Yay. That would be cool. Another one, I know you love Broadway, so do I. We got to get some Broadway people on here. I think their perspective would be so interesting, especially just because of how grueling of work that is. I can't imagine doing eight shows a week. I think it would be interesting to hear a Christian perspective on that. Then a big one, I was thinking music industry. I feel like, especially with Christians in the music industry, either got like one extreme where they're Christians doing Christian music, right? You've got the Kirk Franklin's of the world who have just been doing this for decades.
It's pretty cool to see him stick with that, right, and hear – the interesting here is perspective on like staying in that industry, etc. Maverick City Music, others of those, but then you've got the other side too that people that are very openly and definitely Christians and they say so, but they're not doing Christian –
[0:35:13] JR: Yeah. Those are the people I'm interested in. Who you got there?
[0:35:15] CL: Totally. So, you get like, Tori Kelly, Chrystal Lewis, Chrystal Lewis's daughter, Izzi Ray. So, like I just think of people like that, that are just they're committed to being believers, just telling people, no issues there, but they're not doing explicitly Christian music all the time. Sometimes they do. Chrystal Lewis like started – she’s CCM forever, but she's done jazz and all this other stuff since. Anyway, yeah.
[0:35:43] JR: I haven’t thought about Tori Kelly. I can't believe I hadn't thought about that name. That's a good name.
[0:35:47] CL: Top on the list.
[0:35:47] JR: Yeah. That's a good name.
[0:35:48] CL: For that category.
[0:35:49] JR: All right. We'll putting out the bad signal to Tori.
[0:35:51] CL: Yeah. Then one other person. Yeah. this is a music producer and executive, EJ Games. He is all on the backside. I would love to hear a little bit about that, because producers like they're producing Christian and non-Christian. Everybody's the same on the back –
[0:36:10] JR: Yeah. yeah. That’s good.
[0:36:12] CL: I find that so fascinating and I wonder really what tensions and stuff –
[0:36:16] JR: Yeah. That's super interesting. I like that name a lot. Okay. Great. All right. Candice, what's one thing you want to say before we sign off to this global audience of Mere Christians? Maybe something we've already said that you want to restate or something fresh you want to leave listeners with.
[0:36:31] CL: Yeah. Find out what the people in the pews next to you do for a living. Then go out from Sunday, go to your work, go to your job on Monday, which is where we're all headed after we get together and gather on Sunday, and know that your actual work matters that has changed everything for me. It's not the things around it, or before, or after it, or whatever. It's your actual work that also matters so deeply to God and for his kingdom, even for the gospel-centric kingdom that we are wanting to promote. It matters for that. Your actual work matters. It's been fun to be very like focused on the end of the day, we're working for the glory of God and the good of others, which is what you like to say that has been really helpful for me, because it's short and sweet and it's easy to implement. The glory of God, good of others.
[0:37:31] JR: That's good. Well, hey, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do for the glory of God and the good of others. I feel privilege to be able to hear about your work in the community and be able to say that really genuinely. Thank you being a picture of Christ caring for your people beyond what they could do for you. Thank you for not – I know a lot of people who are just encouraged that their work matters to God and they're great. You're doing the work of responding to that truth and making your work matter more for eternity. Kudos to you for that. Hey, if people want to connect with you, I'm assuming the best place to do that is LinkedIn, searching for Candice Levert.
[0:38:05] CL: Yeah. LinkedIn is a good one. That's easy. That's a good place to go. I want to commend you, Jordan. I think people maybe do it after the recording, but I wanted to make sure, like you always commend others, but I just wanted to commend you for just your commitment to this topic to faith and work and to making sure that believers know that our work matters to God and for eternity. I just love that you're just pumping out all the resources at all times. We can always look forward to something new from you for to be encouraged in that way. Thanks so much for the podcast. I love it. I listened to it all. So, I appreciate you.
[0:38:42] JR: I appreciate you saying that. Thank you, Candice. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode of the Mere Christian Podcast, do me a favor and go leave a review of the podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week.
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