How to create “mini Bema Seat moments” to judge your work before God does
The dangers in the Church’s culture of giving, what Christian peer groups might have looked like in the first century, and how to create “mini Bema Seat moments” to judge your work before God does.
Links Mentioned:
[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 are not pastors or not religious professionals but who work as geography teachers, police officers, and translators? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to my good friend, Mike Sharrow, the CEO of C12, a brand of peer advisory groups for Christian CEOs, with more than 4,000 members all over the world.
Mike and I finally sat down live on the show to talk about the dangers in church’s culture of giving. We talked about what Christian peer groups might look like in the first century, and how you and I can create many Bema Seat moments to judge our work before God does. You’re not going to want to miss this episode with my good friend, Mike Sharrow.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:12.7] JR: Mike Sharrow, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:14.9] MS: Jordan, I’ve been looking forward to this.
[0:01:16.8] JR: How in the world have we gone like 250 episodes deep and you haven’t been on?
[0:01:21.5] MS: I was asking my counselor the same question a couple of times and he said I must have offended you at some point in the past.
[0:01:29.6] JR: That’s it, that’s it, man. Hey, so, I feel like I know you pretty well but I learned something new about you in prepping for this episode, digging through my team’s research. You were at Walgreens for a bunch of years in kind of an intrapreneurial role. What did you do there, what’s the story there?
[0:01:45.5] MS: Yeah, it’s superfast things. So, first of all, I was just super poor and I worked full-time all through college. So, they were hiring and that looked great to me.
[0:01:52.7] JR: Did you grow up poor?
[0:01:53.8] MS: Yeah.
[0:01:53.9] JR: Yeah, interesting. When did you start working? How old were you?
[0:01:57.4] MS: Well, I mean, construction jobs, just like that in high school but I started working full-time at the beginning of college. I worked full-time all through college.
[0:02:03.5] JR: Yeah, wow, good for you. All right, so you go to Walgreens.
[0:02:06.2] MS: So, Walgreens open up a subsidiary right near my college. It was a startup with like 30 employees. I bombed my interview and – but then they said, “Hey, you go to a Christian college, does this mean like, you’re like a Christian?” I was like, “Yeah.” And they’re like, “Tell me about that.” I’m like, “Okay, a little awkward.” I get to the end and they go, “Hey, we’d like to hire you.”
I’m like, “Uh, why?” Because I didn’t do well in the technical part, and they said, “Well, we’re actually doing an experiment with this startup where we’re going to benchmark Christians against non-Christians in our corporation.”
[0:02:37.2] JR: Woah.
[0:02:38.2] MS: And I’m like, “Sounds illegal but it sounds good for me.”
[0:02:43.1] JR: But you’re paying, right? Good. Good deal.
[0:02:45.6] MS: You're paying, right? And so, they hired me to test, was it, could they teach their business to people who had the values they wanted versus trying to teach their values to people who came out of the industry and I got to be the guinea pig of that.
[0:02:57.0] JR: Fascinating.
[0:02:58.1] MS: Eight years, when they started, there’s three – no, 30 employees. When I left, there was 3,000 in their business unit, and, man, I learned a ton. I had mentors, experiences but it’s also – that was the place I wrestled with sacred-secular divide. It’s a place where I actually felt guilty about like, liking work, and I had the defining moment of going, man, I was studying my vocation to find my identity, instead of my identity and my vocation but Walgreens was where all that stuff kind of erupted for me.
[0:03:27.8] JR: Fascinating. I’m so glad I asked this question. So, wait, what did you discover, comparing Christian to non-Christian employees at Walgreens?
[0:03:35.9] MS: So, we did pretty good. They basically said, “Hey, go hire six more people like you who have this kind of moral compass and values piece.” And we’re having a – I had a boss who was an atheist and he’s like, “I trust your moral compass. Like, you are trying to do things that are good for the company, not just for yourself and that’s really good for us.” And it was a very values-driven company. So, they – it worked, and it was a lot of fun and I grew a ton there.
[0:04:02.7] JR: Yeah, I love that. I’ve heard you say before, I actually think you said this in your keynote at the C12 CURRENT Conference at 2023 that, “Business is a gymnasium of faith for us to work out our salvation.” So, looking back on your experience prior to leading C12, and we’ll get to what C12 is here in a minute for those who don’t know, but how can you see that experience early in your career at Walgreens and other places, helping you work out your faith? What do you mean by that when it comes to you personally?
[0:04:32.7] MS: So, when I started kind of having my first bit of business success and working through career stuff and then I started asking this question, “God, I want to honor you in my work, what does that look like?” I suddenly realized that maybe I wasn’t as good as a Christian as I thought I was because I could pass the quiz on like doctrine statements on Sunday but someone said, “Maybe how you live on Thursday, like, how you navigate project meetings, technology issues, contract reviews, maybe that’s your actual spiritual maturity, not what you say on Sunday.”
And I was like, “Well shoot if that’s my gauge of spiritual maturity, I’m not as good a Christian as I think.” And so, when I went from trying to not just go do bad things and be good so I can go do really godly things in my free time, that started, actually, I think a pastor in my church once said, “Hey, if you were to ask every hour, “God, I will love You with my heart, soul, mind, strength and my neighbor” and you would ask, “Did I do that this next hour at work?” See what happens.” And I actually tried that and I didn’t like it.
Like, I was not really loving God or loving my neighbor in a lot of my meetings and then wrestling through how to handle these things. So, man, it’s kind of like going to the gym and feeling like you're athletic and then getting on a treadmill and getting breathless too quickly or picking up weights and be like, “Man, I’m just not as strong.” So, I found that work made me wrestle with what did I actually think about God and people and work and truth and security. I mean, all those things.
[0:05:55.0] JR: I read this quote the other day, hey, this is from the Theology of Work Commentary, “If we are not following Christ during the hundred thousand hours of our lives that we spend at work, are we really following Christ?”
[0:06:04.8] MS: One hundred percent.
[0:06:05.9] JR: I was like, “Dang, dang.” I think this is the primary crucible of our sanctification and it sounds like that’s been true for you.
[0:06:13.2] MS: Totally. Like, I was with a – I was actually hanging with some folks around businesses and one of the guys was like freaking out, put in a hundred hours to that week, and was just stressed. Like, face was turning purple with anxiety, and one of the – someone who was not a believer went, “Hey, aren’t you like, someone who touched by like, your God is sovereign and such? If your God is sovereign, shouldn’t you be a little less freaked out?”
And I was like, “Man, he’s right.” Like, if we believe all these things that Jesus say in church, business is where we get a chance to actually walk that out.
[0:06:42.8] JR: Yeah. All right, so, how did God close this gap? So, you’re at work, you’re like, “Man, if I’m honest, I really don’t see how my faith is influencing my work.” And now, you’re running C12, which is helping other Christian CEOs connect the gospel to their work. How did God close that gap? What happened in your story?
[0:06:58.3] MS: So, there was actually a point where I was asking God to get me out of Walgreens and I made a list of all these things. I felt the bible said are true about me like it’s called to be an ambassador of Christ and make disciples and all these other good stuff, and it’s like, “Man, yeah, I need it, get me out of here.” And He didn’t. Not like an angel appeared but kind of a, God met me at my desk one Friday night.
It was like, “Mike, if you think you think you need to change your context to be who I’ve made you to be, then you don’t really understand who you're made to be because you can be who you’re made to be wherever you are.” And as I started going through the, “Well then, I don’t know how to do this.” He said, “Well, how about instead of asking Me to change your context, ask Me to show you why I have you here and how to be faithful here.”
And as I started asking those questions, the, “How do I do that here?” versus, “Change my location.” He brought some mentors in my life. I started you know, googling and reading books for the first time. I’ve never read about work, not just as like, a thing to fund goodness but a place of goodness and I went to actually hoping that one day I get to go do “ministry” to being like, “Man, I hope I never have to leave this because this is such an amazing spot for me.” And what – the impact I get to have in the world.
[0:08:09.1] JR: Man, that was so good. I love that, you don’t need to change your context to be who God created you to be is really good. Be faithful with what God’s already put in your hands. All right, that’s good context for the work you’re doing today. For those who don’t know, tell us, what is C12, Mike?
[0:08:21.7] MS: So, C12 is a global community, Christian CEOs and owners who meet monthly in what we call forums, that are facilitated by professional chairs or coaches. Diverse businesses, all growth stages, all pursuing this idea of, “How do we build great businesses” Because I don’t think God’s glorified by poorly run businesses. They’ve got fish symbols up there.
But how do we run really great businesses for greater purpose with this disruptive idea of we like to say, business as a ministry, which is code for us saying, we believe and you are a champion of this, that God cares about what we do, how we do it, why we do it, the effect it has on the world and who we become in the process and so, practically, I run a small business, I got like 30 employees.
We create the products, the systems, the brand for this global network and then we equip about 200 of these full-time shares or coaches who run those forums for us five continents and thousands of members all over the world.
[0:09:20.5] JR: Founded in Tampa, fun fact.
[0:09:22.2] MS: It was, right in your backyard.
[0:09:24.3] JR: Come on, right in my backyard. I think this is important. You’re not just CEO, right? Like, you’re actually a member. You’re a member before you became CEO of C12, you’re one of the organization’s 4,000 members today. I’m curious why you believe it’s so important that mere Christians, being in community with other believers who share their vocation, right? Because we’re not just talking about the local church.
We’re not talking about a replacement for the local church, I hope you would join me in arguing, for believers to be involved in a local body but in addition to that, we believe there’s value in being in community regularly with other believers who share your craft. Why is that important for you personally? Like, don’t pitch us as a CEO of C12. Why is this important for Mike?
[0:10:08.8] MS: Well, and to be honest, when I first joined in 2010, a buddy dragged me to a meeting and he was like, “Mike, you have to check this out, you love Jesus, you love business, don’t you want to do this?” And I was like, “No.” He’s like, “Why Mike?” “I’ve already got a great church, I’ve got a great small group. I’ve got mentors and consultants, and frankly, I don’t need one more thing.” Again, I had moved to Texas from Chicago and I had an allergic reaction to bible-built Christianity.
[0:10:31.9] JR: Come on now.
[0:10:33.0] MS: And I was like, “I just frankly think Christian business groups are weird.” And so, I literally went, “If I go to a stinking meeting, will you stop nagging me?” And he went, “Yes.” I said, “Fine.” So, I went to a meeting and what I realized was missing for me was I saw people be actually really transparent about the hard and the reality of running a business. I saw people who because they all had the same pressures and struggles and context, were able to provide accountability differently, and that everyone actually got me there.
I had an awesome small group but they’re not hiring and firing people and juggling the plates I was and while they encouraged me and I got value, I still had to compartmentalize life, and this kind of broke me out of that and so, I was a member for a while and then I stopped being a member because I became a leader of groups. I did that for a few years but when I stepped into the CEO role a little over eight years ago, I jumped right back into forum where like, I’m a dues-paying customer.
I drive – I actually got Austin Texas for the same group for eight years. I’m in it because they call out my BS to help me not make bad decisions. They encourage or remind me when I get discouraged and get fixated on the wrong stuff. Well, that’s probably not – it’s a rare day that goes by that I’m not texting back and forth with one of the other CEOs in my forum for either like, “Hey, awesome win.” Or, “I’m just frustrated.” Or, “What do you think about this?”
I think leadership can be lonely but I don’t think it’s supposed to be and I think when we’re isolated, it also leads to dysfunction because you don’t get challenged to fully live out what you're called to do in business.
[0:12:05.0] JR: Yeah, it’s really, really good, especially the transparency piece. You know, I think this should set apart Christ followers who cross the board but just the ability to drop the façade that I’m always killing it, right? And that everything’s always up into the right and come into a room, knowing that there’s grace, and knowing that there is love regardless of your performance to say, “Hey, things are not going great” right? And just being able to have that support, I think that’s – I think that’s critical.
I was thinking about, in preparation for this, I’m like, man, I bet you could think of, I bet you studied this way more deeper than I have but throughout history, there’s got to be plenty of pairs of mere Christians, who change the world and were in a community like this. Am I not a big call to C12 business forum, right? But we’re in community with other believers in their vocation. Can you think of any of those pairs?
[0:12:58.7] MS: Yeah, I’m a bit of a nerd on this topic.
[0:13:00.4] JR: Yeah, I bet.
[0:13:01.1] MS: A lot of topics.
[0:13:01.3] JR: You’re a bit – I was going to say, you’re a bit of a nerd, just period, full stop.
[0:13:04.8] MS: Period.
[0:13:04.7] JR: But yeah.
[0:13:05.5] MS: Can we agree [Pop 0:13:06.6] Kline and Kevin Black a little bit right now?
[0:13:09.5] JR: That’s exactly right.
[0:13:10.7] MS: I think there’s evidence in even just the New Testament in like Paul in the Corinthians and Acts that you know, he traveled with peers from his trade group in I Corinthians six when he’s talking about how Christians should handle disputes. It implies there’s like, business people in the church having kind of economic commerce conflicts.
[0:13:28.5] JR: Interesting, I’ve never thought about that, yeah.
[0:13:30.3] MS: So, I think there’s implication that there was accountability in community there but then I think in the medieval kind of era, the guilds, the origin of guilds in Europe were often was actually faith communities that began to then sub break into affinity around a trade or a craft, and so they’d actually be doing bible study and prayer, and going, “Hey, let’s get the carpenters together and really hold it accountable to excellence in our carpentry.”
And that’s what built this successful, you know, trade guilds, and then in the American century, American context, like even the modern movement around workplace benefits, medical clinics, healthcare, actually started by some Christians in the 1930s like, John Heinz of Heinz 57 ketchup. He put a gym and a medical clinic at his factory in the 1930s because he wanted to authenticate his love for his employees.
Because he’s been sharing the gospel and praying and such people are like, “Man, I want to care for their human beings and call them, the fact that the gospel compels me to care for their soul.” And that actually changed that or like, we’ve seen industry leaders in like the pallet industry literally transform employee engagement, retention, and care around bringing their faith and kind of sharing best practices.
Saying, “Let’s change what’s been a pretty rough industry and make it good and beautiful.” So, I think it’s old and biblically and historically normative, it’s just not – it doesn’t happen by default.
[0:14:55.5] JR: Yeah, well, and it doesn’t happen in default in a hyper-individualistic cultural moment, like the one we’re living in right now. Yeah, I’m thinking of Hannah Moore, the great poet, who is in community with William Wilberforce and all those guys in the Clapham Sect, without which, I don’t think – I’m not sure slavery would have been abolished in the British Empire in the 1700s or early 1800s.
I think about Tolkien and Lewis and the Inklings, right? It’s a great example – I actually think you’d be very hard-pressed to find a mere Christian who lived 200 or so plus years ago, who really had an impact in changing culture and wasn’t in community with other believers in their field. I think that would be tough.
[0:15:37.0] MS: One of the characters that intrigues me in the biblical story is when like David had Nathan who you confronted them but then, when Solomon becomes king Solomon, actually asks Nathan’s son to be his – his role in the royal court was to be the friend of the king. So, he – Solomon saw something in what Nathan did for David, his dad when I need that in my life, and actually asked Nathan’s son, “Hey would you do for me what your dad did for my dad, because I need someone in the court who will be my friend?”
[0:16:03.9] JR: I’ve never seen that before, I love that, I love that so much. It would be a fund devotional series of these like pairs all throughout the scripture.
[0:16:10.4] MS: Who could write that? Who could write that?
[0:16:11.5] JR: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, let’s see, we’ll find out. Let’s ask around. Hey, so, as CEO of C12, you know, you got these 4,000 members. I’m sure you just have this really cool opportunity to hear tons of satires of the fruits, tangible, practical fruits of this type of community. Now, I’m not talking about positive financial fruit necessarily, I’m talking about spiritual fruit.
I’d love for you to share a story or two of how you’ve seen this type of Christian community help your members more deeply and practically apply the gospel to their work. Can you think of a few case studies as an encouragement to our listeners?
[0:16:49.4] MS: Yeah. One that I got to be right in the middle of that I love because it speaks this idea of integration and just viewing you know, it used to be so well said, like the instrumentality of work. So, there’s a CEO who ran a motorsports company, had a couple of dealerships, and man, he was on fire for Jesus. He was giving generously, he was sharing his testimony, he was offering like recovery groups and programs at his dealerships.
Like, wild stuff, really, really cool, crushing it in the classic sense of like, ministry at work, and if you think about business as a ministry and stuff but in a meeting one day, a peer challenged him and said, “Hey, I love what you’re doing in your business but I saw an ad in the local like sports magazine, and it had like girls in like swimsuits on your product and someone said you guys were doing like a bikini bike wash, like, sales campaign at one of your dealerships.”
And the guy’s like, “Well, that’s just my industry, like, sports, motorsports uses a lot of sexualized ads.” And the peer went, “Well, you’re a follower of Jesus and you say you’re doing this business to honor God. Don’t you think God cares about how you make money, not just what you do with it?” And the CEO was like, “Well listen, that’s just – this is just my industry. But look what all I’m doing with the money from it.”
And he went, “Yeah, you know, I think God – I think that’s cool, but God has a lot of money. Don’t you think He’d want you to honor Him in the way you do it and if you’re an ambassador of His kingdom, shouldn’t your ad strategy reflect that?” And the guy’s like, “Oh, I mean, I’d have to like, re-overhaul the whole ad strategy.” He’s like, “Maybe it should.” So, it took a year but he literally got back to his marketing team.
He’s like, “Hey, I want us to rethink all of our ad and sales strategies through the lens of human dignity, and how do we refine and reform all that?” You know, it was really bumpy, a year later, they were still hitting their sales targets but they, more importantly, got to lead out an example of saying, “Hey, we’re going to promote human dignity in our space in the way we do business and not just use the world’s methods and then go make up for it, deem it because we give money away later.”
[0:18:49.9] JR: Yeah, that’s so good. I’ve been thinking about something Skye Jethani said on the podcast. The second episode I did with him, I think it aired in January of 2024, of just the temptation to pursue the vision of heaven while neglecting the methods of heaven, right? And that’s what you’re talking about, right? It’s, “Hey, oh man, look at all this money I’m making, this is great, I’m donating it to the kingdom.” God doesn’t need your money, right?
He cares about the method as much as what you're trying to accomplish with the methods, right? And what you're saying is community can be an integral part to spotting blind spots that we’ve got that aren’t in line with God’s word when it comes to the methods of pursuing the advancement of the kingdom of God.
[0:19:33.6] MS: I think God is actually loaded financially.
[0:19:37.5] JR: Resources are never the issue in the Kingdom of God.
[0:19:40.0] MS: Yeah, I don’t think he’s like wringing his hands and being like, “Man, I hope I get a little piece of the action on that liquidity bank because that would really fund my capital campaign projects.” Like, I think He’s much more interested in like what we actually create, how we create it and who we are, and the impact on people, culture, and the world. I mean, I’m very, very pro-generosity, pro-wild giving.
But I think that can be a seductive lie that a lot of us think like, “As long as I’m giving enough tax-deductible receipts, then everything else I do doesn’t really matter.”
[0:20:08.9] JR: Okay, I wasn’t planning on going deep here. Can we dig into this?
[0:20:11.7] MS: Please.
[0:20:12.2] JR: I actually think this generosity culture can be really, really toxic within the church because I think it suddenly leads to a workspace righteousness. I’m thinking of an entrepreneur I know, who his business had crosses on its logo. This entrepreneur is very vocal about his faith and yet, his reputation is cursing out employees, it is the opposite of the way of the Jesus but if you confront him about it and I have, he’s like, “But Jordan, how much money we’re giving, look at what we’re doing.”
I’m like, “Do you not see this? You are trying to compensate for sin, this is workspace righteousness.” So, man, I guess, the question for you, Mike, is like how do we, yes, follow scripture’s command and promote generous giving, and not use it as a crutch, right? For doing the harder work, the more sanctifying work of making sure that we’re running our businesses in a God-glorifying way. Does that make sense?
[0:21:13.3] MS: Oh yeah, I think it’s a huge issue. I’ve got a buddy actually who C12 was a bit of an offensive experience for him because he gives a ton of money away and as he would say, one of the downsides if you give money away is like, you’re always funny in your church and no one ever holds you accountable to anything. So, if you walk in the church and you’re the biggest giver, is the pastor going to call you out for your anger or your marital neglect, or your being absent dad?
No, because you’re funding missions, you’re funding the building, you’re “funding the kingdom” and he was in a couple of forum meetings and someone was like, “Hey, obviously, you’re pretty great at giving money away, like, kudos, challenges me, inspires me but your marriage, sounds like you’re kind of neglecting that, are you with your kids?” And then, to your point, like, “Okay, how are you actually leading your people at work?”
And giving is just one thing. That doesn’t excuse or baptize the rest, and it was the first item he had been challenged and held accountable to all those other domains of stewardship, and for some people, money is a hard thing. They’re greedy and they’re consumed and it’s an idol and that’s – I mean, that’s – the bible says like, most people wrestle with that but I think we can falsely think, to your point, that if you’d give and I think we so should double click and what is generous, it a generous of percentage versus a dollar sum.
But we’ve also got our own idols and our issues, and when we make it all about, “Hey, because I gave 10% or 20%” like whoop-di-do, that does not excuse or buy off all the other aspects of glorifying God in the way you do business and how you do business, and I think we have definitely fueled a nursing Christian dualism that says, “As long as you either give a lot of money or talk about Jesus a lot or have a lot of symbols, you’re good.”
[0:22:50.2] JR: Yeah, come on.
[0:22:51.7] MS: You’re like, “Man, let’s do more than that.”
[0:22:53.9] JR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah because Jesus did a whole lot more than that. Yeah, this is related to something else I wanted to ask you, it’s something that I am asking a lot of friends whose work is more clearly and publically “for God.” I think the danger in this kind of work and my hand is raised if you could see right now is doing that work for God but not doing it with Him.
Neglecting His presence, neglecting communing with Him as I go about that work I’m doing “for Him.” So, for you personally Mike, what practices do you have in place to ensure that you are doing this work with your Heavenly Father?
[0:23:33.8] MS: Yeah, I said business is a gymnasium for faith, that is not like for them. That’s for me and it wasn’t just early career Walgreens, it’s even in this business because I think one of the dangers of a business that is overtly “for God” is that can just become like cocaine to the natural workaholism that entrepreneurs are prone to because now, I get to say I am doing it for Jesus.
[0:23:55.5] JR: Yes.
[0:23:56.4] MS: So, man, God has been – like I didn’t really practice sabbath until I got into leading C12. I would have said I did but really, I just meant I had – I go to church on Sunday and I had vacations and such but I didn’t actually practice like sabbath and ironically, it was harder because I am doing all of this mission stuff, so sabbath has become really important. My morning quiet time and talking, like there’s a great little prayer book with a bunch of friends that I went through by Logan Bloom called Praying God's Word at Work.
[0:24:26.5] JR: I’ve never heard of this.
[0:24:27.4] MS: And every morning, trying to actually discuss like God’s business and go, “Okay, God, like let’s…” the other week, I was praying through all my staff, like by name, “Why are they here and what – how do I lead them?” or “Let’s pray for this customer issue or let’s review this week.” So, I think dependence on God, trying to do more gratitude, and be quick to recognize His grace in what we get to do, and trying to look for God’s stories in the work and go.
One of the things I do every Saturday night, start one for sure, when I turned 30 my wife gave me a cylinder, a glass cylinder with blue marbles with one marble for every week of life expectancy I had left, an empty cylinder and every Saturday night at the end of my sabbath, I move a marble over and I go, “Okay, I have spent something I can’t give more of.” And I ask the question like, “Okay, I did – Jesus would you say well done?”
“Like, is this a good week with You?” Did I enjoy You? Did you enjoy me? What if this changes next week?” And so, I think just having lots of micro connection points to make sure I am never running into that. Like, I love Skye Jethani’s work, it is so easy for me to be a – do life above God and life for God.
[0:25:35.4] JR: Yeah, a hundred percent.
[0:25:36.5] MS: And man the limitations to be with and so to me, it is just a constant course corrections and a constant dipping of trying to abide and find disciplines that keep bringing my walk with Jesus into the daily work and not just me bringing work as a trophy to God.
[0:25:51.9] JR: Yeah, that’s good. I like that weekly practice of kind of judging the week. Do you journal that? Is it the same questions that you’re thinking through every week? Tell us more about that.
[0:26:00.9] MS: It oscillates the question. So, to me, it is like a miniature Bema Seat moment like heaven. I’m at the Bema Seat Christ. So, you know, at the end of days, there’s going to be these cool celebration rewards and luckily, I don’t think it is going to be like a rub your nose in your would have, could have, and should haves but this certainly implies like, “Ooh, I wish I could have focused more on those things.”
And so, I would kind of like a – it is like a pop quiz, like let’s do a practice test. Let’s do a Bema Seat today as one as we’re called to be, and so sometimes, honestly, there’s a week where you’re like, “Father, that was a week. I’m here, we survived it, it’s not great, why?” And I’ll kind of do some of the fruit of the spirit reflection or fruit of the flesh, like why was I – why was this week not great? What was I fixated on?
And not in a shame way but kind of a, “Can I just acknowledge that and go? Let’s pivot this next week, let’s rebound.” See a rebound shot and lose years or decades but can I have micro pivots every week and sometimes, it’s going back and saying, “You know what? I think Wednesday was a pretty big day. I think you enjoyed what I learned that day or I think that relationship, that conversation we had on Friday was worth the whole week.”
It was like a – it just, it creates. For me, I need lots and lots of reminders. I think forgetfulness is one of our greatest hazards and it bumps with that.
[0:27:15.8] JR: I loved the way you articulated that though, these miniature Bema Seat moments. I talked about this, I encourage readers to do this in The Sacredness of Secular Work. This is one of the practices of like, judge your work before God does. Like, we know that the Bema Seat judgment is coming not to determine where believers will spend eternity, our soul has been judged past tense and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But at the Bema Seat, we are being judged for the actions that we took at work, at home, this week, and so, wouldn’t it be wise to evaluate those things and course correct while we still have time and it sounds like that’s what you’re talking about?
[0:27:53.3] MS: I like to say, so, you’re like one of the three people I know in the world who talked about the Bema Seat but I think it’s a big, big deal, and I like to say that you know, there is a performance review but the good news is it’s an open book test, and so it’s like I want you to know the answers. Like, there’s rewards and there’s adventure and there’s so much celebration and I kind of want you to know how it works, and so it’s not an anxiety inducer. It should be an excitement inducer but you have to be, and again, I want to study for the test.
[0:28:21.7] JR: Yeah, that’s exactly right. By the way, if you have no idea what we’re talking about because Mike’s right, nobody talks about the Bema Seat. Go read II Corinthians chapter five. Hey, we were talking about The Sacredness of Secular Work before we started recording and I don’t know if I have updated you on this but we know that C12 chairs have bought literally thousands of copies of this book, which I’ll be honest, we did a whole campaign together for that.
But the results have been a bit surprising to me in the positive because these are people who have read every single faith in workbook under the sun and at the risk of sounding so promoting, I really want this to be an encouragement to our audience. Like, man, like for you personally because I know you were a big fan of the book, what was the biggest takeaway for you, where you’re like, “Man, I’m not sure I’ve heard somebody say this in this way” but what was it for you that led you to enjoy that book?
[0:29:12.4] MS: I really, really like it because – so, it was practical, it was on earth. So, all these things are either so philosophical or theological and esoteric. It’s like in the clouds, you’re like, “That seems so cool, I just don’t know how to touch that.” It avoided the ditches. I feel like this issue is like a narrow path matter, where either people go the kind of common grace, just you know, do good, and maybe neglect the eternal perspective or become so about great commission, internal things.
That we get all the symbols and just give money to Jesus and you get the bad brands with good intentions, and you rejected both of those dichotomies and really call to this integrated eternal perspective that was, like there was life in it and peace in it and practicality in life. I was telling you before we got on this podcast, I was talking to Baker this morning, who I’d said, “Hey, you should really read this book.”
He was wrestling with how to honor God with his investment portfolio and deals and he said, “Man, I finally read it, and man, I needed it.” I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because I hadn’t thought about this kind of four-part gospel and the first commission and the great commission.” And he’s like, “Honestly, I kind of neglect both, and getting a chance to grab both though is really invigorating.” He’s like, “It actually renewed an excitement about work.” And maybe the chance to kind of walk out his understanding of the gospel differently.
So, I think anything that doesn’t create shame and guilt but creates a call up into an abundant life in Christ and that is realistic to Monday and Tuesday not just Sunday and Wednesday, and didn’t allow me to kind of choose one part of the commissioning.
[0:30:53.9] JR: Yeah, that’s good man. Yeah, and you know as I say in the book, the people I know who are most engaged in the great commission really are the people most engaged in first, right? Like because they understand that a hundred percent of their time matters to God and not just the point one percent they spend evangelizing. Gosh, they’re fully alive, it’s that abundant life that you’re talking about.
They are just winsome to a watching world and the lost can’t help but ask them questions as to why, “Why are you that way?” Hey, I also know, you and I really first started to develop our friendship after Redeeming Your Time came out a few years ago. I’m curious, what are the example of Jesus as you read the gospel biographies has most shaped how you manage your time leading C12?
[0:31:40.2] MS: There is a pastor who made a quote about the life of Jesus that then caused me to kind of fixate on this part of His leadership in this radically shaped the way I lead C12. He made this statement, this is a little provocative, he said Jesus was a complete waste of His potential but He radically fulfilled His purpose. You know, He could have healed a lot more if He had more people like He could have done a lot more.
And He really is kind of a waste of His potential if you think about it that way but he said, “Man, I glorify God because I did the work that He called me to do.” And I am fanatical about trends that are clear and what must I, what must this company do, must do, and not fall prey to these thousand great things that could be done or could make money or that other people say, “Hey, you guys should…”
And I’ve got more content saying, “Man, that sounds awesome. Someone should probably go do that.” And I would love to refer business to them, encourage them but I’ve got – I know what we’re called to do and if I try to do all the things, I probably won’t do – either won’t do any of the things great or I will sacrifice something that God has only sacrificed and so, I’d say the being clear on purpose not potential and then the fact that Jesus took rest.
My coach and my chair one day put it out, it’s like, “Hey, in the creation narrative on day three, creation wasn’t done and God still stopped and said that was a good day. Why can’t you stop when where it’s not done and have a good day?” So sabbath and being clear on purpose and not getting distracted by trying to do all the things is probably the biggest change in my leadership.
[0:33:12.8] JR: That’s good man, I think about this quote from Kevin DeYoung all the time, “The people on this planet who end up doing nothing are those who never realize they couldn’t do everything.” So, for you practically, what tools do you use to keep yourself focused on the must-have, the purpose, rather than the potential?
[0:33:33.0] MS: So, we actually, a couple of years into me leading this, we actually had to restate our mission statement, vision, core values, and supplying tools because frankly, I was having a hard time making decisions. It was because our original mission statement was so broad and so inspirational, you could kind of justify saying yes to everything under it.
[0:33:52.5] JR: Yeah, yeah, it didn’t kill strategies, which was the problem.
[0:33:55.6] MS: Correct, and particularly when you do kingdom stuff or gospel stuff, you can justify everything for Jesus, right? And so, we needed to create some edges that allow us to actually go, “That’s great, that’s good, that’s even Godly but it’s not necessary for this mission.” And I needed it to be an arbiter tool that I could say yes and no with. So, that’s a big deal. Inviting, we got a good board of directors that are very, very engaged, executive team.
And a process around, “Okay, of all the things we could do, is that really going to drive what’s most important to the mission today? What are the measures of mission that are most critical five years from now and if we prioritize investments and activity we’re doing this year if we’re trying to move things five years from now?” Let’s let our yeses to those things be so consuming that it demands us to say no to a lot of good opportunities.
And literally, I was playing racket ball with someone last week, he goes, “Hey Mike, I got a great idea for you. C12 should have all these cool ideas anyway and don’t hide behind your stinking mission statement again.”
[0:34:54.3] JR: That’s great, what a compliment.
[0:34:55.8] MS: I know, I was like, “What?” He’s like, “You always use your mission statement as an excuse to not do new things.” I was like, “Yet I do and that’s why we are getting better and better at the few things we do.”
[0:35:05.9] JR: One hundred percent. Man, I’ll tell you what, anytime anybody, entrepreneur or not, it’s like, “Oh, I am so overwhelmed. I’m saying yes to everything, I got a million things on my plate.” My first question is, “What is the deep burning yes? What is your big hairy audacious goal for your life and work right now?” And 99 times out of 100, they don’t have one and that’s the point, right?
Until that yes is so inspiring, so focused, so well-defined, so big that it has to kill off other options, you’re always going to get sucked into the thick of things every single time.
[0:35:42.5] MS: I completely agree but the thing is like the world right now even in Christiandom kind of celebrates hustle more, have many different things tried. I think it was a female author I heard years ago, I never thought about it this way but she said, “The lie of the serpent to Eve in the garden was that you could have everything without it causing you anything.”
[0:36:02.4] JR: Yeah, that’s good.
[0:36:03.2] MS: And the serpent kind of just spits on the same lie ever since and I think that’s really sinister and really pervasive and it’s super hard to go back and hey, we got to miss your dream, the right dream, have the right plan, all that kind of stuff but essentialism, there’s so many great books that have come out in the last decade around it reinforces this kind of stuff but the temptation to do more at the expense of greatness.
It’s part of like I’m the third generation CEO of this organization and one thing I look back at and marvel is how many times my predecessors had to say no to really tempting good things to get our business to where it is and get the product to where it was when I stepped in because every week, I feel like I’m saying no to 15 good things, like fiercely trying to defend the single track in what we’re still trying to accomplish.
[0:36:50.8] JR: Yeah, that’s good man, that’s really good. Hey, can we talk about CURRENT 2025? Can we do a little PSA here?
[0:36:58.1] MS: We can, we can.
[0:36:59.8] JR: Come on, so what is CURRENT 2025, what is this?
[0:37:03.2] MS: So, our business primarily is these hundreds and hundreds of forums that meet all around the world every month. Every two years, we do a gathering, it’s a conference but it is not like a global leadership summit or all these other great conferences I go and attend. This one is where we bring together a couple dozen CEOs nominated by their peers to all share best practices of how are you doing this business as a ministry.
It’s what people are presenting on sales or hiring or operations or finance and practical, like, “This is what I’m doing today because it’s best practice.” A chance to get a couple of thousands of people from around the world together who are all on this mission, living in the mess of this game together, and we bring one or two guests in who we think are providing particular thought leadership as well. So, super excited that CURRENT 2025, that will include this guy named Jordan Raynor.
[0:37:52.8] JR: Come on now.
[0:37:53.6] MS: Kind of – well, like we need – okay, we need to find a really good-looking nerd to come and help me look less strange, and then Pat Lencioni, who’s become a friend and he’s helping coach me and our team is going to come as well. So, it’s in late April, it’s in Dallas this year, we only do it every two years. It is just incredible because where else are you going to find like thousands of people who are all trying to figure this whole run the business and follow Jesus mess are somewhere on the spectrum of trying to do it in an integrated way, and you get to hear from folks who are doing it today.
Like, this is – here’s what they learned last year, not 20 years ago, not 30 years ago, and they’re not just discussing it abstractly. So, it’s next April in Dallas, it’s two, two and a half days, and I’m stoked. It’s a crazy party.
[0:38:42.5] JR: I’m so pumped. I was telling you before we started recording, you know, by God’s grace, I’ve got to speak on some big stages but man, this one’s a big deal to me. I have so much respect for the work you guys do at C12 and super-super honored to be spending time with you guys. So, by the way, if you’re listening and want to sign up – but can non C12 members register for this event?
[0:39:04.7] MS: Yeah. So, the website is C12Current25.com, and 80, 90% of the people there will be C12ers but there – every year, you know, there would be a couple of hundred people from cities and countries going, “Man, I want to see what this movement’s actually about, how this actually work.” Or, you know, there’s – we’re in about 160 cities right now, but there’s hundreds of cities we’re not. So, some of those people come every two years saying, “This is my chance to kind of hear what’s happening since this doesn’t exist in my city yet.”
[0:39:31.6] JR: Yeah, I love it. Well, hey, I would encourage all listeners to go check that out if you want to hang out in Dallas. April 23rd through 25th, 2025. All right, Mike, four questions, we wrap up every episode with. Number one, what job do you want to be on the new earth?
[0:39:47.4] MS: Man, that is definitely a question I’ve never been asked before. So – and I love that you have this part of the podcast. I was thinking as you’re going, man, I hope I could have some sort of role where I get to spend part of my time running like a king – a new earth business school, where I get to help new generation leaders dream entrepreneurially, and then maybe get to be like an operating partner for the kingdom holding company, where I’m helping place capital and guide strategies for entrepreneurs in the new earth.
[0:40:14.1] JR: That’s so good. I love that answer.
[0:40:16.4] MS: I wanted some epic hiking will do, I’ll do some adventure trips while there.
[0:40:18.8] JR: Epic hiking, I like that. Maybe you’ll be like a hiking tour guide, like a Sherpa.
[0:40:24.0] MS: Sign me up.
[0:40:25.1] JR: Going up Everest, the new Everest, I love it. Hey, what books are you giving away most frequently to friends? Like, if we opened up your Amazon order history, what do we see you buying over and over again?
[0:40:36.1] MS: Well, this past year, there’s been a lot of weird books by Jordan Raynor but additionally, I buy a ton of copies of Love and Respect on Marriage. I think it’s entrepreneurs and Christian ministry leaders typically are tied for the worst marriages, and it’s an area of neglect. So, I’m a big champion of that and then I love recently the book, Unoffendable by Brant Hansen.
[0:40:55.5] JR: Okay, I haven’t read it. Pitch me on this book.
[0:40:58.3] MS: So, it’s basically Galatians 2:20 that punches you in the face and gets really practical. It says, “Christians should be the least angry, least offendable people on the planet.” And whenever we champion truth or fight issues and we do it from a place of defense and anger and offense, we miss, we hurt the image of Christ, and so to me, it’s – man, it will offend you as a spouse, a parent, a neighbor, a driver on the Tampa highways.
But as we think about this polarized world of politics and ideology and world view collisions, Christians sometimes oscillate between apathy and just being disengaged or being like, keyboard courage warriors and being mad and Unoffendable really challenges to a place of, “Hey, Galatians 2:20 says, I no longer live, Christ lives in me.” So, people should experience Christ speaking, not Mike’s offendedness or fearfulness.
[0:41:50.1] JR: That’s good. All right, I'm going to put it on a list, I love it. Mike, who do you want to hear in this podcast talking about how the gospel shapes the work they do in the world?
[0:41:57.4] MS: I think you got to get Pat Lencioni on because he’s had a – he has a wild story.
[0:42:01.7] JR: So, I’ve actually never invited Pat, I’m a little ashamed to admit that publicly here. We might cut this out. Pat, you’re invited, always, I would love to have Pat on.
[0:42:10.5] MS: Okay, and I’m going to tell him, I think he should come on. Brandon West is a guy in Gainesville Florida who runs a digital firm called PHOS, and he’s got a powerful story about changing the way things about success in business, and then my chair, Dan Walters. He was this former chief of staff of Saudi Aramco. Lived in Riyad for 20 years, and his testimony of following Jesus while leading thousands of employees for a Muslim boss is just fascinating.
[0:42:40.4] JR: Oh my gosh, is this Dan whose group I spoke to?
[0:42:43.0] MS: Yeah.
[0:42:43.2] JR: Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that about him, that’s fascinating. Okay, all right. We got to get Dan out here, that sounds amazing. All right, Mike, before we sign off, you’re talking to this global audience of mere Christians, a lot of them entrepreneurs and CEOs, a lot of them, not. What’s one thing you want to leave them with before we leave?
[0:42:59.3] MS: Just one thing? I’d say, your work matters to God, that your vocation is never an obstacle to eternal impact in ministry, it’s the context and platform for it, and that it can feel lonely but it doesn’t need to be. So, be in community and embrace your business and your vocation as your ministry platform.
[0:43:20.6] JR: That’s good. Mike, man. I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do, brother, every day for the glory of God and the good of others, for helping Christian CEOs, really practically apply the gospel to their work. I love that advertising example you gave before, man, so good, so practical, and just thank you for the humility you show and submitting yourself to the community of others.
Friends, if you’re a CEO and you're looking for this type of community, check out JoinC12.com. If you’re not a CEO, we have our own Mere Christians Community that a lot of you guys know about, at JordanRaynor.com/mcc if you don’t meet the requirements for C12, and make sure you hang out with me and Mike at C12Current25.com. Mike, brother, I’m always so grateful for you, thanks for hanging out with us today.
[0:44:07.8] MS: Love it, Jordan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:44:09.1] JR: Man, I love that guy. I love the direction he is leading C12 and so grateful that he was able to join us today. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, 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.
[END]