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We’re combining the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor audiences today to continue to address the current events we face. Todd Wagner joined us to speak into how we as believers can respond to the fear and worry surrounding COVID-19. 

Todd is the lead pastor at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. If that name sounds familiar to you it’s probably because you’ve heard Henry mention it in the intro to this podcast as the location for where we will be hosting our Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor Conferences this fall. In addition to being our host and a speaker at the event, Todd is also a great voice in the faith-driven conversation. 

His words of wisdom—or as his Twitter handle calls them, words from wags—are encouraging, challenging, and uplifting to all who hear them. And with our current events, we could all use encouragement. Like Todd shared, “worry is not our friend and panic is not our way…”

Useful Links:

Should Christians Be Anxious About Coronavirus?

Coronavirus is redefining the words Church and Worship

Real Truth. Real Quick

@wordsfromwags

Big thanks to Andre Mann for letting us share his thoughts and helpful tips on working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

— by Andre Mann

As the Bay Area wakes up to life under lockdown, and companies across the country are encouraging people to work from home encouraging “social distancing,” my thoughts flash back to lessons I learned from running a business under lockdown a decade ago.  My family and I lived in Afghanistan where I helped run a media company with a Department of Defense contract, and a travel and logistics company. We lived in a shared compound of our home and the office, so we effectively “worked from home.” Kabul, being Kabul a decade ago, was a place where lockdowns were not uncommon, and where the threat of violence kept us evaluating every trip outside against the risk of an attack.  The situation was completely different from the coronavirus, yet there is so much that makes me flash back to those days. The threat was invisible, just like a virus, and every measure taken seemed like an overreaction. And yet it was all necessary. Here are some lessons we learned in running a business (and family), and staying healthy under lockdown.

1. Don’t let fear overpower you.  The only way to truly overcome fear is to turn to God, and commit our will to trust in Him.  God is sovereign. The only reason we can take our very next breath is because God sustains us—he is in control of everything.  And we can trust Him. He is a good God. He loves us. He will never abandon us. He does not want us to live in fear.

2. Seek to serve the more vulnerable.  How can I love my neighbors well?  Is there an elderly person who needs groceries ordered online and doesn’t know how to?  Keep your 6-foot distance, but help them out with that. How else can you help? Just reaching out and asking can be a significant gesture.

3. How can we give generously?  From figuring out how to support small businesses with online orders, to giving to non-profits who depend on donations, to supporting your church, don’t allow fear to paralyze your giving.  If you have funds in a donor-advised fund, now may be the time to deploy those funds to make up the funding gap so many non-profits are experiencing.

4. Practical tips for everyday living under lockdown:

   1. It’s important for everyone to have a routine.  When working from home, with young kids, spouses, and pets all in one space, before you know it, every day begins to feel like a Saturday.  That may sound like fun for the kids on Day 1. But by Day 7 everyone will be bored out of their wits and the working parent is about to blow their top at the chaos at home.  

   2. Get up early, like you did when you went away to work.  Get the kids up early like they were going to school, and have them keep a schedule of learning.  This will require some planning.

   3. Get dressed.  This will signal to yourself, and everyone else in your household that you are ready to work.  Don’t work in your pajamas.

   4. Define spaces and time schedules.  Especially with young children, it can be difficult to understand why mom or dad are not available to play.  However, you can help signal to them what is work time and what is play time by working from a specific spot, and keeping work to specific parts of the day.  And then protect your family time by not allowing work to bleed into the evening. Set limits for yourself. Keep your family time your family time, and work time your work time.

   5. Taking a Sabbath is important even when you are working from home.  Let the weekend be different than the work week.  On the weekend, break up the routine. Sleep in. Fix a meal together, take a nap.  

   6. Get some exercise.  Becoming sedentary will become the easiest thing to do when you are living in lockdown.  You will need to be creative if you don’t have a lot of gym equipment at home. Lots of gyms are taking their classes online to help people stay fit.  In some cases, you can still go for a run as long as you stay away from others. Don’t let this slide.

   7. Double down on time with the Lord.  You will need to nurture your soul, even more during uncertain times.  Be protective of your prayer life. Rather than having just one “quiet time”, why not also add a family devotional at a different point in the day?

   8. Social distancing does not equal relational distancing.  Pick up the phone and reach out to friends and relatives.  Stay connected. Use Skype or FaceTime so you can see each other.

   9. Remember that this will pass.  Trust in the Lord.  We don’t know what things will look like on the other end of this, but no matter what happens, the Lord will not abandon us.    

If you’d like more advice on dealing with isolation and/or a lockdown from a mother’s perspective, Andre’s wife wrote a helpful article on their personal blog here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON COVID-19, PLEASE SEE OUR PAGE HIGHLIGHTING SOME OF THE BEST RESOURCES OUT THERE FOR FAITH DRIVEN INVESTORS & ENTREPRENEURS IN THIS SEASON.

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Today’s guest is one we’ve been excited about for a long time. Bob Doll is a leader in the faith-driven investing movement from his work at Oppenheimer Funds, Merrill Lynch, BlackRock, and now, Nuveen. 

You may have seen him on one of his frequent appearances on CNBC, and we were honored to have Bob join us last summer for the Faith Driven Investing gathering in Utah. The work he’s been doing for the best few decades has been instrumental in shaping the conversation this website is stewarding.

We owe a lot to Bob Doll and we’re excited to share the hard-earned wisdom his experience has yielded. As always, thanks for listening.

Useful Links:

Bob Doll’s 10 Predictions for 2020

Bob Doll on Faith and Finances

Maintaining a Christ-Like Attitude with Bob Doll

This article was originally published here on Medium.

Check out VillageCapital’s blog for more quality content!

by Rob Tashima

My genes make it tough to find jeans. I’ve got short legs, and finding a pair of trousers to fit them can be a challenge. They are either too short, too long, too tight or too baggy, so when I find a pair that actually fits, I end up buying several of them to stock up. This means I’m not a big fan of current fads: I do not look good in skinny jeans.

I’m hardly alone in facing this challenge — we’ve all got different body sizes and different body types — and yet, unless you’re able to buy your Japanese raw indigo custom cut to your measurements, we’re all forced into the same small range of jean styles and sizes.

We get frustrated when our clothes don’t fit. If we really like them, we have some options to adjust to them: cuffing them, taking them to a tailor, losing some weight to squeeze into them.

But otherwise, if a pair of jeans don’t fit, we don’t wear them.

If we take this approach to jeans, why don’t we take this approach to venture capital?

Read the full article here!

This article was originally published here.

Check out ReligiousFreedomandBusiness.org for more quality content!

by ReligiousFreedomandBusiness.org

A growing trend in corporate America that is being embraced by some of the largest and most recognizable companies will be the topic of a first-of-its-kind conference in February. From Google to Facebook to Walmart, companies from a range of industries are recognizing that faith-friendly environments mean better workplaces and better businesses.

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and the Busch School of Business at Catholic University will hold a groundbreaking conference for employees and executives to discuss the importance of corporate programs that foster religious inclusion. The two-day conference will take place at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., on February 13 and 14, 2020. The event will feature executives and members of faith-oriented Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) sharing best practices, challenges and opportunities.

Check out more details for this event (and register) here!