The Intersection of Faith Work and Life
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Tessie Talks with your host, Tessie Becky and co-host me Paula Oone, where we share with you top leadership and management strategies. This is and continues to be a journey of discovery and we, that is, Tessie and I are learning that leadership is both personal and professional and we hope you, our listeners will walk with us.

[00:00:31] Today we have not one but two guests, hug brand and Dr. Robert c Varney. I'll tell you a little about both of them because they are such impressive great people. Hugh Brand has lived in three global cities for 40 years and has experienced firsthand the major problems that cities have. These include twisted problems of a city that feel [00:01:00] overwhelming and beyond repair.

[00:01:03] And Robert, during his entrepreneurial career, was invited to the White House as part of a select group of CEOs for and economic briefing by President Clinton. He appeared in the Wall Street Journal report on a BC television review of the University of Singham Center of. He has testified on Capitol Hill.

[00:01:29] There's so much more to say about him, but what I'll do is I'll welcome them to the show and let them expand on this impressive bio that I've just read. So welcome to Tessie Talks. Well, we love being with you. This is Bob Varney. I go by Bob. And I did have a wonderful career as an entrepreneur for about 25 years.

[00:01:50] I've been doing pro bono work in the missions field since 1999, so it's been a whole second career as long as the first one. So it's exciting to learn what's going on in [00:02:00] the world in missions and certainly what's going on in the world, in cities as God has brought more and more people into cities, which is one of the reasons we've begun to understand how important cities are in the kingdom of God on the earth today.

[00:02:15] This is Hugh. I have been an educator for 45 years. I began teaching secondary school in Southern Africa in 1979, and I then became a chaplain at the University of Zimbabwe and continued to educate. I lived in London, England. I again, working with university students at different universities around London and now through Cities Project Global, continue to facilitate learning amongst workplace leaders.

[00:02:45] Amen to that. Wow. Wow. This is amazing. And so amazing because it brings together so much wealth. And you know, today we have a special theme, and it's the intersection. [00:03:00] Yeah. Faith, work, and life. So welcome to the intersection, which by the way, is a title of your fantastic, marvelous, wonderful, insightful, and helpful book.

[00:03:12] Welcome. So I'm gonna kick off the first question really, and you've touched on this, but I think our interested in knowing more about C'S Project Global. I think the short version is that awaken, equip and unleash leaders into the city so that they can do what God has designed them to do, and the awaken part has become really quite important.

[00:03:36] What we have discovered is that there's a large number, I mean probably as much as 90% of Christians in the world who don't really understand the kingdom of God on Earth and what their role in it might be. We spiritualized things so much. That we think only of sort of theological and religious kinds of things, and yet [00:04:00] all we have to do is go back to Genesis chapter one, verse 31, and you'll recall that it says God looked around at everything he had made, and behold, it's very good.

[00:04:14] Now, it had been good when he created the mountains, when he created the light, when he moved the waters, when he did the plants, and then he did create us on the sixth day. But what he did was looked at everything. Then he put us in charge. He said, you have dominion over all of this. Well, we sometimes forget that it's so exciting to lead, to help lead someone to Christ.

[00:04:37] I mean, the Holy Spirit is actually the one that draws somebody into Christ. It's not our anyway, but we talk about it that way. But there is so much more that God wants us to do. I mean, we're saved by faith, right? We know that by grace. But in Ephesians, it says He created us for a certain amount of workmanship that we're supposed to be doing well.

[00:04:56] That's what's needs to be happening in the kingdom of God [00:05:00] on Earth right now. And there's a need for an awakening because Christians don't seem to understand how big their role is. You know, I can't talk about Jesus 24 7. I can talk about all the other things that God wants me to do 24 7, you know, so that's the focus that we've been trying to have these days, is to recognize how important it is to awaken Christians to their role in God's kingdom.

[00:05:28] That's really lovely. I mean, some of the thing I read about in your book and also on the podcast that I've listened to, and by the way, what marvelous podcasts you have absolutely fantastic is leadership circles. So tell us more about these leadership circles that you run. The leadership circle is our main strategy.

[00:05:47] We use to do what Bob was just describing. We want to awaken people to this larger truth that God has a bigger story that all of us have a part to play in, no matter what your work is, but [00:06:00] also it's to activate them so that everybody, no matter what their work is, whatever sphere of society they work in, they live in.

[00:06:08] They'd see themselves on mission with God. And the leadership Circle is a, a nine topic worldview journey into faith, vocation, and culture. And it's a, a guided journey where we initially will facilitate leaders in a city to go through it through these nine topics, but then we leave it with them. Many of them will now want to take it and facilitate additional people in that city.

[00:06:32] So we wanna see it spread so that where there's more and more workplace leaders and students in the universities, people and companies to see themselves on mission with God. And the exciting thing is now with the Leadership Circle, it's been translated into five other languages. We have it in Russian, we have it in Arabic, we have it in French, we have it in Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English.

[00:06:57] I. That's marvelous. Paula, I see you [00:07:00] leaning in. I have a question. This is just so fantastic. You know, as I said, listening to your podcast and you've said something that I've always said, that when Christ came, he came for the world and we as Christians, not everyone can be a missionary. Not everyone can go into, you know, people have not been.

[00:07:26] Regular people showing, letting God's light shine through us. And that's exactly what I think you're doing. And so my question was, and I guess I'm kind of answering it well, when you talk about integrated living, what exactly is, do you think, or how can you tell our listening audience what God's design for integrated Lebanese?

[00:07:49] Well, you first have to understand that God gave us the Holy Spirit. As you become a Christian, the spirit can dwell within you. Now we have the [00:08:00] ability, sadly, to coin that spirit to not pay attention. Okay? But thankfully we have the ability to pay lots of attention and life is filled with things. You know, I'm married, been married for 57, going on 58 years.

[00:08:14] I have a bunch of grandkids, wanna spend time with my grandkids. I do obviously a lot of work with C'S, project Global. I'm going to soccer games and I'm reading books, and I'm preparing lectures and I'm, you know, I mean, how many things do you get to balance? Uh, which is one of the reasons we decide balance is the wrong word.

[00:08:33] Integrate is the better word. Is that I'm actually not capable of integrating my own life. I need to rely on the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is the one that says, do this now, do this later. No, don't do this. Okay, so the Holy Spirit is the one who orchestrates. At least I try to do it my own life. I mean, that's how it's supposed to be.

[00:08:59] I have to [00:09:00] confess, it's not always that way, but I understand that the spirit is the one that leads us and we discover new things. We grow in those things. We share those things with other people, and we live our lives directed by the Holy Spirit. I mean, we have plans and Proverbs says, you know, the mind of man plans his way, but guess what?

[00:09:19] God directs his step. But if I'm not listening to God, I do my own steps. Wrong idea. Okay. I have to rely on that spirit and maybe just to jump in to say, if every aspect of my life matters to God, I. And he's wanting me to trust him in every aspect of my life. And that's what we're talking about is we're living by faith, trusting him.

[00:09:43] Whether I'm cutting the grass, whether I am, as Bob said, attending my granddaughter's soccer match, football match. Yes. And all of that matters. And so he's calling us to live. We use words like harmony and seamless that we're [00:10:00] called to live by faith in every single thing we do. Back in 1970 when I met the Lord, I went to a little lunch after church with an older couple, and I remember the lady telling me about this idea of giving glory to God in everything I do.

[00:10:18] First Corinthians 10 31 has become my life first. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, you do all to the glory of God. And then she said. She could do dishes for the glory of God and I can row the lawn for the glory of God. And I thought, Uhhuh uhhuh. Okay, good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I had no clue.

[00:10:41] Honestly, I had no clue. Okay. It's been years of understanding that it's the Holy Spirit that actually gets you to do these things. And so 1970, I got saved. 1980. In the midst of my entrepreneurial career, I'm doing some real estate development. We had a crisis, a [00:11:00] financial crisis in the United States. It affected all the real estate developments.

[00:11:04] So I was a brand new guy doing it, and it affected me. So I was offering 18% mortgages on office condos. Right. Okay. I mean, people think that six and 7% is too high these days. Okay? 18 is ridiculous. It's so I had no market, right? You can imagine I had no market. So I'm sitting at the corner one day looking over at these nearly empty buildings that I built first time in my life.

[00:11:29] Now Christian, 10 years, and all of a sudden I hear the voice of God. Bob, did you ask me before you started the project? And I thought, no. Why would I ask you? I mean, and that was sort of the end of the conversation, but obviously I then began to think, okay, okay, I guess God cares about real estate. Really that's business.

[00:11:52] Come on. Well, a few years later, I did a merger, IPO with my first company. I'm still doing the real estate, and God allowed me to [00:12:00] survive that crisis. Now I'm out of a job. Okay? And I thought, I guess I pray, right? I guess I pray. What do I do? I started thinking about what I should do and I, with my PhD in computer science, I wanted to invent something.

[00:12:14] You know, I thought that'd be really cool, go in my garage like people did. And I felt like God was saying, no, no, no, Bob, go find a prototype product and develop it from there. Otherwise you just waste five years getting something going. And I thought, how on earth this is 1980? You know? I mean, there's no internet, there's no podcast, right?

[00:12:33] There's nothing, right? What do I do? Take an ad in the Washington Post entrepreneur once company with prototype products he can buy. You know, it just didn't work. So I prayed. Two weeks later in my church, one of the guys from my first company comes up to me, Bob, I've been working with a few guys. We've got three prototype products.

[00:12:56] We need a CEO. We wanna know if you want the [00:13:00] job. And I thought, whoa, is this how God works? So it's just an assurance to me that God actually does care about everything. He cares about the work that I do, not just how I do it, not the kind of person I am, but actually the work itself. That's the part we try to get over to people.

[00:13:18] It's something that's not understood very well. You explained it extremely well, Bob, and what comes into my mind is hope.

[00:13:29] Because I'm reflecting at the moment on Living Hope and trusting, and just today I was reading a piece on Honest Hope. Honest hope with God, what becomes possible. And really, you know, your story is beautiful. I know that you and Hugh tell beautiful stories, so can you tell us a few stories about how this hope, this living, hope, this trust, this design living has surfaced in what you see?

[00:13:59] Yeah. I'll let [00:14:00] Hugh start out with this story and, but he'll also tell us why stories are so important. Yes, thank you. I just do need to say that we believe stories change lives because stories go down to the worldview level, and so what we need to tell stories, biblical stories and our own personal stories, because that's what Jesus did.

[00:14:18] You call 'em parables. They're stories. So what if I can interrupt? It's also what's filled in the Old Testament. I mean, we see stories of real people doing real things, doing wonderful things, doing stupid things. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's all story and it reaches into our souls. Yes. Tessie probably started from me in 1980, almost the same time as Bob, but at this time I was a secondary school teacher in the country of Latu, and I went there to proclaim Jesus, and we would stand outside the door waiting for the previous teacher to leave so that I would then go in and teach math or science or English.

[00:14:54] And as I was waiting, I'd stand and pray, and I'd find myself not just praying that the [00:15:00] students would understand math and that they would then get a good score. A good mark on their test and graduate, but also I cared about that they would graduate and they would do well in life, that they would become successful, that they would have a family and they would have a job and that type of thing.

[00:15:19] I. Well, I can say back then it didn't have the theology to support why I was doing that. So I, I was doing more than just praying they'd know Jesus. I was praying that they would flourish, they would experience shalom, peace, this joy that we're talking about. Well, years later, I began engaging with Bob Varney and we began discovering what we're talking about now.

[00:15:42] And that's why, again, God alerted me to this in 1980. And here we are 40. Five years later, still with the same message, communicating the same idea. One of the examples that we have, we have quite a number of them. When we first started doing this, there was a plastic surgeon down [00:16:00] in Sao Paulo, Brazil who went through our class, our leadership circle, all nine topics.

[00:16:06] And you know, he's doing well. He is a very well known plastic surgeon, making a lot of money. But as a number of us, do we care about the people who are not able to make that money? We care about some of the people that are in poverty or. Or confined or things like that. I mean, there's always those kinds of people, God says, so he thought, well wonder what it could do.

[00:16:27] He decided that maybe he'd be able to find a way to offer his services to those people who couldn't afford it. So he went to the three hospitals that he was practicing in and convinced each of them to donate their operating room for a day each month. Okay. Now that he had the hospital doing that, he went to the nurses and said, Hey, how about you guys?

[00:16:49] You know, donate your time. Then he went to the anesthesiologist. How about you guys? So what happens is that that's all donated and what he does then is puts [00:17:00] together a group to vet people. So he now goes and says, okay, I found a young man who's got a cleft palate. He's embarrassed by what he looks like.

[00:17:10] He talks funny and he can't get a job and he, his parents are poor and you know, he's got all these things against him and I can do something. So not only does he talk to the young man, but he talks to the family and because they're poor, they're generally in the neighborhood where there a lot of people close by.

[00:17:27] He talks to the neighbors. So he's expanding his view to what's going on. Then of course he does the operation and or maybe sometimes it's a couple operations and the face is restored to something that, I mean, when you have a, a not normal face, if you will, uh, people don't like it and people respond not well.

[00:17:47] Okay? And this just causes people joy. I mean, my wife is a dentist, and this is mild in compared to what the plastic surgeon does. But there are some people who don't smile because they don't like their teeth, [00:18:00] right? She did a lot of cosmetic dentistry and all of a sudden they smiled again. Well, can you imagine what happens when your faces restored?

[00:18:08] So, I mean, there's just wonderful things that people can do with the talent God has given them. I saw love this thing, what people can do, the talent Jesus has given them. I love what you're saying to smile again. Oh my goodness. When I smile to look at my face again. Yes. These are beautiful stories for everybody.

[00:18:34] Yes, everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you, Paula. Yeah. You know, and as you spoke about that, I thought what we learned, you know, what Paul said and first Corinthians 13 about love, that was love being demonstrated, being.

[00:18:56] There's so much lack and just to [00:19:00] help someone feel like a normal woman being with something that you know God has gifted you with. Oh my gosh. I mean, the surgeons, the nurses, the hospital who gave their operating theaters for a day changed lives. Right. Many lives. Many different lives. Yes. Amen. For people.

[00:19:25] Hugh, you might describe the schools and the clinics that are put together in invo. Sure. The leadership circle's been conducted in French in Abbi Co Devo, for going on eight years now. And some of the workplace leaders have really taken this to heart. For example, one, he's a high up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the country, but he looked around his country and his city and he saw that there's a leadership problem and he discovered there's a place in Abidjan This.

[00:19:55] It's a large city of over 6 million, third largest French speaking city in the world. [00:20:00] And he discovered in this area there was not a place where children could get a good education. So he helped build a school, and it's initially an a primary school, but it's becoming a secondary school. And the dream is it'll become a university.

[00:20:14] He responded to this need, he saw there was a need for good leadership development in particular in this part of this great city. And so he and others raised money and started to build a school, and it's going so well. I. There's another man that went through the leadership circle, like Bob described as an emergency room doctor.

[00:20:36] Also, he teaches at medical school, and again, he looked around and saw there was a part in this city of Agen where there was no clinic that people could go to, so he helped build a clinic, but more than just building the clinic, he was concerned about the bedside manner that people typically experience when they go to the hospital.

[00:20:58] So he [00:21:00] ensured that they would provide this loving care of people who now were able to walk a short distance to get to a clinic, but they would receive loving care. Well, again, this came as a result of both these men having this bigger idea that God is calling them not just to proclaim Jesus, yes, but also to live like Jesus and meet the needs of people in their city.

[00:21:22] We love to awaken people to what it is that God has prepared them to do. Each of us is designed differently. God gives his gifts out freely to people, whether they believe in him or not. Okay? But for those believers, certainly we want to utilize those gifts. I remember back when I first started, you know, this company that I now took over, back in the mid eighties, we brought data and voice to the same terminal.

[00:21:49] I mean, this was back in the days when they were all separated. I mean, I didn't have any theology about this, so I basically said, okay, God, you and me, you know, we're gonna try to do this together and I have no idea what I'm doing. [00:22:00] Okay? So you can start with tiny little steps, and I knew that I needed to care for my employees.

[00:22:08] Okay. So I worked at that. One of the examples is as we grew a little bit and moved into a new facility, I had a couple people come along and say, Hey, you know, we're runners and we wanna take our lunchtime and go run, but we have, you know, we kind of smell when we get back. And there was just something we could do about this.

[00:22:25] So we said, okay, fine. We'll build a shower for you guys. Okay. So we took care of our people in that way, and we had our people taking care of our customers. We had our people take care of our vendors, right? We established sort of a, an environment, a culture inside the company. I mean, it wasn't, it didn't change the whole city, it just changed us.

[00:22:47] And we were a small company. We had this, you know, about 125 people. You know, it wasn't really that big. The effect happened with Citibank, one of our customers, and with Shell Oil, [00:23:00] with Nations Bank, with American Airlines. I mean, we, we had large customers and they experienced this. And not only that, this is the one that knocked me away.

[00:23:10] Okay? I have the company for about eight years. I, I sell it to a public company. Most of the people move up to New England where the company was, but a number of people stayed in the area of Herndon Reston in Virginia. 10 years later, somebody calls a reunion, ITC people, come on back. We're gonna have a reunion in a local restaurant.

[00:23:31] Okay, great. Good idea, fun idea. Let's go. There was a lady who took care of my customer service, did a great job, never wanted to have a conversation with me about Jesus. Never. Okay, so. We didn't have one. I mean, there were opportunities. My office was always open and there were a few people who came in and accepted Christ.

[00:23:51] That was exciting. This girl not, not interested. So I walk into this restaurant 10 years later, Linda is standing. [00:24:00] Must be just watching me. 'cause soon as I walked in the door, she comes running over to me. She said, Bob, I said, what? She said, I'm a Christian. Did. Here's what made me understand how important the culture of a company a community is.

[00:24:20] She said, when you sold the company, almost immediately it started to feel different. And I thought, whoa, tell me about that. What's that like? She said, well, it was something missing. It just wasn't the same. And I what it was, you know, months. I think it relates to that God he was talking about, you know, that he sort of got taken out.

[00:24:47] So then she started to figure out who that was and that led her to Christ, that led her to salvation. Led her to her husband, who's a Christian. I have a couple kids gonna Christian school. You know, it was a privilege for me [00:25:00] to see what I wouldn't have seen. I mean it, it went on without me. Okay. But it went on because I integrated my life.

[00:25:10] My work mattered to God, and I knew it mattered to God. And so, you know, she felt it because it created an environment and literally anybody can do this. Anybody can do this. You can do it in your company, you can do it in your neighborhood, you can do it in your family, you know, but you have to want to do it.

[00:25:29] You have to follow what God is saying. You can't. As a company, I can't bang people over the head. You know, I didn't tell 'em everybody's gotta come in and talk to me about Jesus. I mean, you can't do that. You have to just be a witness for Christ. What a powerful story. Yeah. I wondered too much. You'd like to be this for 30 minutes.

[00:25:51] I think we're almost there. Yeah. But before we close, I.

[00:25:58] Has to be we all as [00:26:00] Christian when we integrate Holy Spirit into our life change. Yes. And so I wanna close by asking, by looking at the future, what do you think with the help of the Holy Spirit is his next vision? Vision for your next steps? Oh my gosh. Well, the vision is actually huge and it's well beyond C'S Project Global.

[00:26:24] The vision is to mobilize all the people in the body of Christ. I mean, God wants that. He wants everybody to be awakened to the existence of his kingdom on this earth. Now, he's given out his gifts to everybody, so we all have a role to make his kingdom function. Amen. We as global wanna be a part of. We offer a leadership circle that brings people through a journey to help them be awakened, be equipped, and then we press them into what it is you're going to [00:27:00] do about this.

[00:27:01] But there are others who are in this faith and workspace, and it's a space that's not preached about very much in churches. And there are some places where the idea of the workplace is somehow ancillary as opposed to central. One more little thing. I asked Barnett to do a study for us some years ago. We looked at where people work, what sphere of society out of the seven and where Christians work.

[00:27:28] The economic sphere is the largest. About half the people work there, and then you got family and government beating and everything. The surprise was that you look at all the pastors you know, and the assistant pastors and the youth pastors, and the little nonprofit Christian organizations. 1%. That's all it is.

[00:27:47] The number of Christians working in that place is only 1%. So I ask everybody listening, what do you suppose God wants to do with the other 99%? Get 'em [00:28:00] mobilized. Get 'em working for the kingdom. And Paul, just to jump in to say that our vision is the whole globe, not just in the Western world, not just in Africa, but around the globe.

[00:28:10] And so the desire to see our book translated into more languages. To see the leadership circle translated into more languages, to see people listening to God as Bob is describing and ready to live out their faith in everything they do in cities around the globe. And, um, we're have a real focus right now of wanting to bring this message to university students.

[00:28:33] Imagine if the young people can understand this when they're in their early twenties, for example. What difference can that make then for the entire, the rest of their lives? And so we're taking it into the universities, wanting to take it into companies, and of course, wanting to take it into churches.

[00:28:50] Here's our book in Arabic. I just got it the other day. So to you, our amazing audience, thank you so much for tuning in. We always [00:29:00] encourage you to head over to Apple, YouTube, Spotify, or anywhere else where you listen to podcasts and please. And if you like what you just said, who wouldn't we ask that you write us a raving review.

[00:29:17] If you have questions or topics that you want us to cover that's related to leadership and governance, as you see from this episode, leadership and governance involves the Lord Jesus Christ as well. We ask that you send us a note. Remember, your notes can be personal as well as professional.

[00:29:39] Please head over to our website, which is Tess at pecking do com slash tessie talks to apply. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. This was excellent. Inspired, aptly inspired. Thank you. It's our pleasure for sure. Amen. Thank you. [00:30:00] A great privilege.