Article originally posted here by Eventide

by Robin John

Is there a difference between ownership in a company and patronage of a company? Watch Eventide CEO, Robin John explain the responsibility of both roles.

People often ask me, “Robin, do you buy so-and-so product? And if you don’t invest there, do you buy their product?”

And to me, there is a difference between ownership and patronage.

Let’s say that there is a convenience store in my local community. Well, let’s say I walk by orange juice. I walk by gum. They may be selling pornography, tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets. I walk in, I buy milk, I walk out. I’ve done business with milk, right? So I’m a patron in the business. By buying the milk, I’m encouraging, in some ways, the convenience store owner to stock more milk on the shelf. By not engaging with the tobacco, in some ways, I’m discouraging the sale of tobacco. So as a patron in the convenience store, I could encourage or discourage the convenience store to sell certain types of products and not sell the other types of products.

But if I’m an investor, if I’m an owner in the business, I share in the profits that come from all the products, right? So I would say that the owner, the investor, has even a greater ethical responsibility than the patron.

This article was originally published here.

by Katie Sweeney

The following article appears in the spring issue of The Strategist.

In his 13 years working at Sears’ world headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Ill., Michael Valleskey has survived recessions, manager changes, several rounds of layoffs and the Sears-Kmart merger of 2005.

So what has kept him going? His Christian faith — and his Christian co-workers.

Seven years ago, Valleskey, a real-estate research analyst for Sears Holding Corp., helped found the Christian Fellowship at Prairie Stone, a 150-member informal group of Christian employees at the Prairie Stone office complex where Sears has its headquarters. The group of mostly Sears employees holds lunchtime Bible studies and prayer groups, and members act as a support network for one another. Valleskey also participates in the Sears Associate Gospel Choir, which rehearses at lunchtime and is an officially recognized group at Sears.
 
“I don’t know what I would have done without my co-workers of similar faith,” he says. “They have been there to support me, encourage me, make me a better worker. They really are family. It’s basically church. I have a church in the workplace.” Church at work? It’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Across corporate America, there’s a growing movement to recognize and incorporate spirituality and religion in the workplace. A few of the signs: a growing number of religion-based affinity groups, lunchtime prayer meetings, on-site corporate chaplains and company “quiet rooms” for meditation and prayer. Meanwhile, books on religion and spirituality in business are flying off the printing press, and even some business schools are starting to address the issue.

Who’s behind this movement? While evangelical Christians are leading part of the charge, the trend also includes other Christians, as well as groups focused on more general spiritual principles. In addition, people of all faiths are seeking time off and other religious accommodations from their employers. In short, religion in the workplace is the next big diversity issue.

If this sounds like sticky territory for companies, it is. However, ignoring the issue has its own perils, says David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and author of the book “God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement.”

“The soul train is going through town,” Miller says. “If you haven’t thought through a structured policy and appropriate training for your management, you’re going to make a misstep and find yourself on the back end of a lawsuit.”

Read the full article at The Strategist

This week, we featured Christeen Rico on our podcast, and she gave us some great information about what Employee Resource Groups are and what it takes to form them. If you haven’t listened to her episode, it’s definitely worth checking out. But we also have another ERG resource for you…

Thanks to the faithful research of some faith driven investors, interviews were had with Faith Based ERG contacts to organize the companies using employee groups within their organization. Below is a sample of these groups—from one of the largest retail chains in the country, to car manufacturers, to insurance, these groups are on the rise.

Click on the logos to learn more about an individual company’s ERGs, or visit our page to find organized summaries of companies with ERGs.

This article was originally published here.

Check out Inspire Investing for other quality content!

by Robert Netzly

Did you consult the Bible before you bought into your investment portfolio?

That may seem like a strange question, but the Bible has a lot to say to Christians about how to manage investments with both financial and moral implications.

Thankfully, in recent years there has been a resurgence of attention paid to the importance of applying the Bible’s commands and wisdom to our personal investment decisions. There has also been a corresponding proliferation of biblically responsible investing products and services that help make it possible for Christian investors to put that biblical teaching into practice with their portfolios.

Following are five Bible verses that every Christian investor should take to heart as they seek to be wise stewards of the money God has placed in their hands.

Investing For The Glory Of God

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

When you ate your oatmeal this morning, did you realize it was intended to be an act of worship? This verse says plain as day that our purpose for investing, and everything else in life, should be to glorify God.

This may seem like stating the obvious to some, but it is important because this verse is commanding us to intentionally pursue God’s glory in every investment decision we make. And God’s glory goes far beyond the financial aspect of investing and also includes issues of morality and ethics. To invest for God’s glory means that we must consider more than just our financial returns when making an investment.

If we can eat and drink to the glory of God, certainly we can and should invest God’s money for God’s glory.

God -vs- Milton Friedman

“Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.” (Proverbs 16:8)

This verse could not possibly be more subversively counter-cultural. It flies in the face of all that Wall Street stands for. It contradicts the foundational economic theses of some of the world’s foremost financial experts, who boldly proclaim that maximizing profits is the first and only duty of business and investing. (I’m looking at you, Milton Friedman).

And the influence of this worldly perspective on wealth has also infected the Church, resulting in many Christian financial experts regurgitating Wall Street’s profit-at-all-cost stump speech. Sometimes these Christian voices even attempt (unsuccessfully) to validate that viewpoint with scripture.

Often they point to the Parable Of The Talents in Matthew 25 to make the claim that God rewards those most who make the most money. But that parable is not making that claim at all, and even if it was, it does not follow that the Master in that parable does not care about how his servants made his money grow.

What the parable teaches is that God expects us to use everything that He has given us in accordance with His expectations, His values and His will. Newsflash: God doesn’t need more money. He certainly could care less about how much money we make “for him” in this life. US Dollars don’t spend in Heaven.

Proverbs 16:8 makes it clear that God cares more about how we make money rather than how much money we make. Indeed, God proclaims it is better to produce a lower return on investment in a righteous manner than high-flying profits unjustly. There is nothing wrong with earning high investment returns, but they must never come at the expense of holiness and certainly cannot be our primary directive.

Therefore, it is a biblical imperative that Christian investors consider the moral implications of their investments. Are you earning money from abortion, pornography, human trafficking or other unjust industries? We cannot ignore these issues if we are to be true to God’s word.

Indecent Investment Exposure

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11)

Here is another, more direct command to Christians to not only avoid participation in immorality, but also to expose it for what it really is. We need to call a spade a spade, or in this case, call an immoral investment an immoral investment.

Enlarging your investment account by investing in the “unfruitful works of darkness” is not an option for Christian investors. This is not an issue that the Bible allows us room for personal convictions. It is commanded. Instructed. Required.

Let me also say that there is grace here, too. Some investors are new to this concept of screening their investments based on biblical morality and as such are profiting from activities that would make them shudder. Praise God that He is gracious and willing to forgive our trespasses, including those made in ignorance! Lord knows that I am need of that grace on a daily basis!

Not In My House

“You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 23:18)

Here we get a strong taste of the Lord’s disdain for the wages of immorality. “Abomination” is not a word to be tossed around lightly, and the Bible reserves that word for only the most, well, abominable activities.

It should be well noted by all Christian investors that the Lord does not simply have a passing distaste for the profits from sinful business activity, He abominates them. So much so that God even forbids the money earned from sin to be brought into the house of the Lord and given as an offering. This is no small issue in our Lord’s eyes.

I have heard some Christian commentators attempt to make the case that a Christian investor can justify investing in the stock of companies which earn profits from immoral activities as long as the investor donates their portion of the profits generously to ministry, like some sort of spiritual money laundering scheme. Indeed, this same thought passed through my mind some years ago when I first was presented with the unsettling truth that I was invested in and recommending investments in companies with serious moral issues.

This scripture soundly rejects that notion altogether. The ends do not justify the means in God’s economy.

Joyful Reward

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)

Now back to Matthew 25. For all of the clear instruction to avoid profiting from and participating in works of immorality, there is also a great reward for those who have been faithful in stewarding what God has placed in their hands. And as mentioned earlier, faithfulness to God is not measured in financial currency, but by the measure of God’s glory.

There will be great joy for you when you stand before the Lord having faithfully honored Him in your life, by His grace and the Holy Spirit’s power. Our labor to honor God is not done from a spirit of fear of punishment, but from a longing to glorify our Lord and receive the “well done” as an eager child from a loving father.

“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:17-19)

Honor the Lord with all that He has given you. Glorify Him to the utmost in every word, deed and investment. Joyfully submit your portfolio to the lordship of Christ, for it all belongs to Him after all. Eagerly look forward and strive to “enter into the joy of your Master”, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God in your life.

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2019 Global Event.

We share Luke’s White Paper as the first of many 2019 CEF White Papers to be shared here!

by Luke Roush

Joseph Schumpeter was a prominent economist in the mid-20th century, who devoted his life work to the study of capitalism. According to Schumpeter, the “gale of creative destruction” describes the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”. 

We see this continuous evolution in the history of global business over the last 100 years, and the acceleration of its cadence has been the topic of much discussion. Xerox has experienced this in the realm of photocopying, Polaroid in the context of photography, traditional newspapers have given way to online-only publishers like Huffington Post, and in only fifty years we’ve gone from Vinyl to 8-Tracks to Cassettes to CDs to MP3’s to Cloud-based Streaming. Further to the product itself, the modes of distribution and purchase have been transformed multiple times, with e*commerce being a notable transformation. Industries like agriculture have been transformed as well, with biological engineering and mechanization creating new economies of scale that have transformed a number of industries. And, more examples continue to develop each year.

The work of Clay Christensen in The Innovator’s Dilemma does a great job of chronicling the difficulties that big companies face in their attempt to defend market share and maintain their leadership position. Successful innovation is, most often, a source of temporary market power, eroding the profits and position of incumbents, yet ultimately succumbing to the pressure of new inventions brought to market by the next generation of innovators. Schumpeter’s work is a powerful economic concept because it helps explain this cycle of industrial change — the transition from a competitive to a monopolistic market, and back again.

As Christians, when we observe this creative destruction, and the acceleration in its cycle time, how should we respond? What guidance does Scripture have for us? All the way back in Genesis 1:27-28, Jesus talks about our mission in the world:

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;  male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 

God has made man in His image, and as His image-bearer, we are equipped to mimic God in His creativity. To be clear, we are not intended to ‘become’ God, but instead to reflect God’s creativity, redemption, and restoration into the world. As we do this, we must do it in a manner that is consistent with the entirety of Scripture, led by the Spirit through prayer, and informed by Godly counsel from others. N.T. Wright builds on this intent in his book, Surprised by Hope:

“Earth – the renewed Earth – is where the reign will take place, which is why the New Testament regularly speaks not of our going to be where Jesus is but of his coming to where we are…And what he was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose – and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.”

For fun reading on what this quote doesn’t look like, one can review the history of the Luddites, who were a secret oath-based organization of English textile workers in the 19th century. Within this group, a radical faction destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest. While most choose a more peaceful form of protest today, there are groups whose arguments against change and innovation are eerily similar to the Luddites of the 19th century. 

Are there new challenges that the Gig Economy has brought to light between management and labor? You bet. Are jobs going to be disrupted by robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and a 3rd wave of internet and mobile-enabled services? For sure. But, disruption has always been the case, and will always be the case. It’s the by-product of creating new things. As the cadence of change has accelerated, the need for all of us to become lifelong learners who are continuously capable of building new skills has become urgent and mandatory.  

As we deliver this message to ourselves, our families, and our communities, we must do so with transparency and we must lead with love. We must listen and seek to understand before sharing our views. We must be prepared as citizens and as Christ-followers to help shoulder the burden for training and re-education of our colleagues. If we are going to equip individuals to provide for themselves and thrive as contributing members of society, we must be individually willing to engage in this mission. Federal, state, and local municipalities should not the primary drivers in this mission. Instead, this is a mission that we as Christ-followers should be leading and speaking into.

Thomas Cahill who authored Gifts of the Jews, provides a great historical context for where we’ve been, and where we’re headed:

 We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage–almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance… …This is also the story of the evolution of Western sensibility, a narration of how we became the people that we are and why we think and feel the way we do. And it is, finally, a recounting of those essential moments when everything was at stake, when the mighty stream that became Western history was in ultimate danger and might have divided into a hundred useless tributaries or frozen in death or evaporated altogether. But the great gift-givers, arriving in the moment of crisis, provided for transition, for transformation, and even for transfiguration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found.

As we assemble here together at CEF 2019, let us imagine together how we might reflect these words, and inspire others in our various communities to do the same as we lean into the creativity and innovation given to us by our Creator. 

THE BUSINESS OF LOVING THY NEIGHBOR

Pete Kelly and the team at Apartment Life have taken God’s command to love thy neighbor and turned it into an opportunity for both ministry and business. And they want you to do the same. If you work in real estate and want to see how God’s love can shine through your work, this reading plan is for you…

PRAYING FOR PEOPLE AROUND YOU

Everywhere we look, there are people in need. Few groups understand this dilemma better than Pete Kelly and the team at Apartment Life. They’re working to decrease suffering as they increase human flourishing, and they want to show you how to do the same. Join us on a journey of prayer as we bring the people around us before God.

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT AND PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

Managing and developing real estate comes with its own unique set of challenges. Thankfully, Pete Kelly and the team at Apartment Life have been thoughtful about this topic and have given us a framework for how to think, and really how to pray, through the heart posture and process of buying and selling property.

For more reading plans, visit our resources page here.