Intro: Welcome to the iWork4Him Podcast. I'm Michael Miracle producer of the, iWork4Him radio program, the voice of the faith and work movement. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: This episode of iWork4Him was previously recorded for the Christian Leadership Alliance's Outcomes Conference Podcast, where leaders come to invest the best of what they know into other leaders.

Martha: Remember, if you have influence over just one person, you are a leader. Together let's listen to this Podcast and learn more about leading God's way. Enjoy!

Jim: Martha and I are excited to host the Outcomes Conference Podcast. Every Podcast is dedicated to you, our Outcomes Conference Podcast listener. We have an incredible conversation coming up today with Mark from CRU. You remember old Campus Crusade called CRU today? C R U .org, C R U .org, where you can find them online.

We'll be focusing on leadership and thriving. And of course the related Outcomes. Mark Tjernagel, welcome to the Outcomes Conference Podcast.

Mark Tjernagel: Thanks. It's great to be here!

Jim: Before we get started with talking about your leadership role and your perspective of what God is doing and leading through you as the CFO of the environment at CRU and the people underneath you tell us personally how you keep your faith strong and how you keep your leadership Christ centered every day.

Mark Tjernagel: Well, it's, I mean, this is the challenge from the Christian life, right? How do you stay centered daily? Like moment by moment. And for me, it's just being reminded daily of my need for God to do his work in and through me. You know, am I submitting myself to him in humility? Am I asking the holy spirit to work in me, to control my thoughts and words and actions?

You know, when when I first was introduced to CRU- like CRU's mostly known for like these two booklets, like back in our, you know, our ancient history. The four spiritual laws, you know, basic presentation of the gospel. But the other booklet people sometimes forget about it was, it was the color blue, so people refer to it as the blue booklet, but it was basically a small booklet talking about how to, how to walk in the power of the spirit.

Jim: Wow.

Mark Tjernagel: So how does the holy spirit play a role in your daily life? And you know, it's a lesser known book than the, then the gospel booklet of the four spiritual laws, but it's equally as powerful and important in the life of a believer and in my life. I mean, how many times have I started the day in my own power and strength, and then gotten to the end of the day and thought, man, this is a difficult time?

Instead of simply humbling myself, going to the Lord, thanking him that I'm his child, asking his holy spirit already lives in me to, to continue his work in me and through me. I mean, it's so much, it makes such a big difference in your daily life. If it's the Lord doing the work, versus if you're trying to struggle and strain through it in your own strength.

So, you know, that's, to me that it's not really a big secret, it's not a, you know, this dynamic formula, you know, this big conspiracy, it's simply the Lord -allowing the Lord to work in me and through me.

Jim: Hmm. That's a good word though. It's always a great reminder.

Martha: It really is. So Christian Leadership Alliance is really- this year- the word thrive is, is at the top. You know, it's on the tip of our tongue and it's really been a focus. What does thriving mean to you personally, Mark?

Mark Tjernagel: Well, let's talk about thriving in context. Okay. I, I think thriving entails a holistic view of life, right? So it's, it's it's health and its health in what ways? It's being healthy spiritually, right? Am I, am I doing the things we just talked about? Am I walking in the power of the spirit or in my own strength? Am I, am I studying his word? Am I kind of growing in my knowledge and understanding of him and how I live that out? Am I healthy physically? Right?

Am I, am I eating right? Am I exercising? Am I healthy and my key relationships, right? With my, with my wife, my kids, with my grandkids, with my, my parents and brothers and sisters and friends, like, am I healthy relationally? How's my mental health? You know, there's a lot of stress and anxiety. I mean, there always has been, it seems like this last year, it's, it's been, it's been upped a notch quite a bit.

How am I doing mentally in my mental health? What about intellectually? I mean, am I, am I growing? Am I healthy? Kind of in my understanding of things and am I in my trying to learn and to get better - work in -different parts of life? So thriving to me is really a comprehensive view of like and here's, here's, here's a couple of reasons why I take more of a comprehensive view as opposed to saying, well, thriving is just spiritual or it's just at work or whatever.

Unfortunately at my church in Orlando we've had two pastors that were extraordinarily gifted preachers, but who stumbled morally. It was tragic, you know, one aspect of their lives going really well. They're thriving. Church is growing. People are coming. Lives are being changed. They're preaching and unpacking the word in a dynamic way.

And yet another part of their life wasn't thriving, right? There was, there was something wrong. They weren't healthy. Here's an example of me personally, right? Not to pick on others, but it just take me personally. I'm a, I'm a doer and a goer. Like my pre pandemic life. I'm on the road all the time. I'm working.

I'm doing lots of hours. I'm go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And I don't always take care of myself physically when I do that, like when you're on the road or you're busy or you're stressed and you're, you know, you're working like how easy is it to just say, well, instead of eating healthy, I'm just going to grab the closest, fastest thing I can grab, right? Fast food, you know, whatever it might be or just not eat. Or go through the day on coffee, diet Coke and a candy bar. Like I've done that before, literally on trips. It's not, trust me -, it's not healthy. So while man, I was accomplishing some great things on my projects and I'll let you know the different meetings I was in, you know, I could find myself neglecting another area of my life.

So, so what does it mean to thrive? I really think that thriving is that comprehensive look like taking an evaluation of your life overall. Kind of those key and important and significant categories and looking and saying, am I growing, am I thriving? Am I healthy in all of these areas?

Martha: That's such a good answer. And of course would expect nothing less from a CFO, right, Jim? A very comprehensive look at all of the different line items and bring it all together and ask to balance out. I, I liked that not to make light of it, but it was really, really, really great.

Jim: My sister's a CFO so we understand it's, it's got a balance sheet. All right. So how does CRU, I mean, how many people do you have reporting to you within the organization at CRU?

Well, within

Mark Tjernagel: the, within the finance function, there's about 60 locally and about a hundred across the country.

Jim: All right. So 160 people. How does CRU as an organization enable you as the CFO to help the people underneath you, those you serve, how does it enable you to thrive and enable you to help you help them to thrive?

Mark Tjernagel: Well, this is a, this is an it's an interesting question. So as a missionary, right? I'm I am, I'm called to do a lot of things, you know, called to serve the Lord, you know, help fulfill the great commission. Raise money, do whatever it is. So how, how does CRU help me to help those in the finance function or finance people to thrive?

It, it is by helping me to be healthy first, right? So, and that's not always easy. I mean, look look around the country. I mean, people in quote, unquote professional ministry are struggling all over the place. CRU's done a lot of things to help me through the years. I remember about five years ago we have our youngest daughter, who's an adult now, but when she was a teen, she had a lot of significant health challenges and Cru allowed me, I mean, I was the CFO.

We had a lot of projects going on at a very busy schedule CRU allowed me space to take care of my family. And how they do that? I mean, I used to take every Friday off, honestly, to pay medical bills and to track which bills had been paid and hadn't been paid and to, you know, help my wife with setting up doctor's appointments for my daughter and all of that.

And I was able to do that for a whole year. This past year CRU has allowed me and our staff several times they've said, Hey, you know, if you just need to take a half day off and spend time with them, or to take care of yourself, go and do that. And I've taken advantage of that. This, this year we're in right now, we, we just instituted a new HR policy for mental health days.

Just admit, if you're stressed, if the culture and the challenges of life are getting to getting to you, just take a day and and spend some time doing whatever you need to do. If it's seeing a counselor, if it's going to the beach. If it's, you know, just spending time praying or going for a walk, just take time and do that.

And so CRU's done a really good job. I think of trying to help me and our staff as individuals to take care of yourself so that you can also take care of others.

Jim: And what a great example that is for all the people that represent all the organizations listening today to the Outcomes Conference Podcast. We'll be back with more with Mark Tjernagel, the CFO of CRU. Check them out online CRU.org, C R u.org. We'll be right back with more from the Outcomes Conference Podcast.

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Jim: Hey, welcome back to the Outcomes Conference Podcast today. We're talking with Mark Tjernagel. the CFO of CRU. If you want to check him out online, cru.org.

Martha: So Mark, you just shared some great examples of what CRU has really encouraged its staff in ways to stay healthy and to really thrive in the environment we've had in the last year. How about you personally? Like, are there things that you've implemented in your, in your leadership, in the office or, you know, in the office, whatever that might be, right, or personally in your own life that has helped you to be able to focus on your mission of being a leader?

Mark Tjernagel: Well, so, so let's talk about like, as I'm leading the finance function and I look back through the years, what's something that stood the test of time as a leader? That that I think has had a broad impact on me and how I lead, but also on the people that I lead and the culture that we've created. And I think the one thing that has stood the test of time, the most is intentionally leading through our values or leading kind of from our values. So, so what do I mean by that?

So what I mean by that is like CRU has three corporate values, faith growth and fruitfulness. And then for the finance function, we we'd had a lot of challenges with, you know, having a, kind of an unhealthy culture. So we, we added a fourth value of community. And so we set out and said, you know, our strategy is kind of what we do.

Our values are who we want to be and how we want to interact. And so how do we lead with these four values? What does it mean? And so I'll tell you, I'll tell you how we do that. I'll just give you like some brief examples. So first we defined them. What does it, what, what, what does valuing faith even mean?

It sounds great in a Christian organization, but what is it? So, so what are the values and how you define them? And second is defined- this is the important one- define what does it look like to live that out? We -actually wrote statements under each value, and this is what it would look like to live out faith or growth or fruitfulness and community.

And, and, and it just makes it more practical so people can understand it. The third one is important. And this is, this is you have to be intentional about leading with your values. So many times organizations stop, like they might define them, right? And they just, and then that's it. So it's a plaque on the wall, but we're intentional about it.

We, you know, we keep the values prominent in our daily work. My team's done this incredible job of branding them so that they're kind of everywhere. You can't really get away from. But not just like on the wall, but we talk about them. You know, we do devotions on them. We have meetings about them.

They're, they're part of our, you know, our branding and our, our Conference rooms and so forth.

Jim: Some would call them decision filters. Do you, would you consider them your decision filters, your, your values?

Mark Tjernagel: Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially like take the value of growth. Well, how do you set up a at your development, your human resources or your development function?

Well, if you're valuing growth, you're going to look at how you do growth a certain way. You're going to challenge people. I mean, in fact here, I'll read you a, I'll read you one of the statements in growth. It says we truthfully give and continually invite and humbly consider feedback. Well, if you're in an organization, that's truthfully giving feedback, that, that organization looks a lot different than one where, where people are afraid to kind of talk to one another or they just want to do happy talk all the time and say, yeah, everybody's great. But truthfully getting feedback means you might have, your boss is going to tell you, you know, in this area we really need to see growth and we're not seeing it.

That's a way practically that we live out our values. Let me give you one final point on values and this one's the kind of the kicker. Okay. We celebrate them. You have to celebrate things, right? Life's too dang challenging. You gotta celebrate things. So when we see someone living out in a value, we acknowledge it.

We celebrate. And one of the things we do every year is we have something called our annual awards celebration, not to congratulate ourselves. But the purpose of it is to, to, to celebrate what God has been doing in our lives. And so we actually give a value award. I mean, we give it an award for each of the values to someone, but the cool thing about it is it's not about winning the award.

It's the whole process because to be nominated, people have to write an essay about you, about how they've seen you live out that value.

Martha: Wow.

Mark Tjernagel: What happens is your team is actually looking for how God is at work in their teammates lives throughout the year. They're watching, they're looking for it and then they have to actually put it in writing to nominate you.

And so whether you win the award or not, if you're nominated, you get, you get the essay somebody wrote about you. Jim and Martha, how powerful is that? If you were handed today an essay that somebody wrote about you and said, Martha, this is how I've seen God at work in your life and how I've seen you living out the value of faith.

Or Jim, this is how I've seen you grow in the past year. I've seen God, do you know X, Y, and Z in your life. And as a result, it's really impacted others around you. Like that is so powerful. Yes, living and leading by our values has really stood the test of time. And I think it's been the one thing that's impacted our culture the most.

Jim: And I would tell you if I got a letter like that, I would put it on a frame and put it on my wall. And I'd look at it all the time cause what a great word of encouragement that that would be on a daily basis to remind me: hey, people are watching. And as a leader people are watching and noting and if they actually complimented me, it means you're getting something done. I love it. We're talking with Mark today from CRU. He's a CFO and he wants you to check it out online. CRU.org. Ask for the blue booklet. You got any?

Mark Tjernagel: Yeah, there's, there's still quite a few around but mostly digital now.

Jim: So you can look for the four spiritual laws and the blue, one about the holy spirit, all online: cru.org. We'll be right back with more on the Outcomes Conference Podcast.

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Welcome back to the Outcomes Conference Podcast, we're your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're talking today with Mark . He's a CFO at CRU. Mark. I want to thank you for just being so transparent and powerful and that last segment, and I know you probably didn't set out to either of those things, but wow.

Thank you for just a great example. Martha wanted to follow up because she felt like she didn't get enough follow-up time in that last segment

. Well, Mark,

Martha: I just want to hear like a practical example of a way that you, or someone that you lead experienced leading with the values during this last year, year and a half, when, you know, you had to do life differently and there is a lot of things that probably challenged that process.

Mark Tjernagel: Yeah. That's a great question. The toughest value to live out when you're working from home is community, right? We're used to having this physical place where we all congregate and where you have these, these face-to-face touchpoints on a regular basis. And then it's gone like in a, you know, in a heartbeat it's gone.

And so you have people working from their homes and talking on zoom. And, and that has been the most challenging thing. And so I I'd say my, my team more than me, my team has done a great job of just trying to think through how do we connect people, even when they can't be face-to-face and they've, you know, they've just, they've done all kinds of things throughout the year.

They actually, they, we instituted this software where you can actually go on and, and just chat, like verbally chat with people kind of as if you're in the office. And it has, it has been received very well. We've done little lunches and coffee meetings where people can meet up in smaller groups that are, that are kind of safe in the midst of the pandemic, but where people can have some face-to-face times.

We've, we've tried lots of things. I wouldn't say, Hey, man, we've hit it out of the park on all of them, but that's, that's the one we've really focused on. We didn't want people in their homes -some of which live alone, some of which are houses surrounded by kids and parents and family members -but we didn't want them to feel separate from the rest of the office. And so any way that we could think of how to better connect people we, we tried to do that.

Jim: I love it. I love the fact that you guys, you know, you're not saying: we, we, we did it perfect. Everybody should follow our example. We just kept trying. And you kept listening. As you said at the beginning, you ask the holy spirit. Okay. What in the world do I do with this? Mark, CRU is a well seasoned organization. It's not a brand new organization. It's got decades and decades of experience. It's gone through lots of senior leadership transitions over the years. Can you talk about resiliency and the transformation of CRU over the years, that's kept it thriving and effective?

Mark Tjernagel: Well, I think you should ask me next year.

Jim: Okay. Why is that?

Mark Tjernagel: This might be a bad year to ask me. Seriously CRU is in the midst of a whole bunch of change right now. Right? We, we just installed a new president, only the third president CRU's ever had.

We have a new US director. Two of our largest ministries based in the US are transitioning to new leaders also. And on top of that prior to the pandemic, we were on the early stages and now we're in the latter stages of a complete management restructure of CRU outside of the U S. So there's a, there's a lot going on.

And you know, I, I'm trying to do everything I can to help support my fellow leaders in CRU, so that we're all thriving and effective after all these changes are, are kind of wrapped up and, you know, in place. But I'll say the one thing that our, our, our president and our executive team has been repeating over and over and over again, that I'm trying to reinforce and live out as well is that in the midst of all of this, we need to stay true to our calling as an organization. Right? What, what is CRU here for? We, we're not here to do everything in the body of Christ, right? But we have a specific calling and we're called to winning building and sending in the power of the holy spirit and helping the body of Christ do evangelism and discipleship, staying centered on what your organization- for what, in our case, what our organization is in existence for is where you have to, that's where you have to kind of keep yourself in order to stay really resilient.

Martha: Such great words. And, you know, it really is because each one of us has individually, we have different gifts, talents, and abilities, and organizations have, you know, a call that God has put on the leadership and why it was designed so remembering what that is and staying true to it -such great words.

So Mark, as we close out- Christian Leadership Alliance is really all about leaders investing in other leaders, the best of what they know and sharing it with others. So what is something that, a leadership idea or a thinking that you would like to invest in the listeners of this Podcast?

Mark Tjernagel: That we're all part of the body of Christ. You know, it's powerful to be kind and generous. It's also powerfully destructive to be unkind and greedy or stingy. I was recently reading through Romans. I got to chapter 12. I mean, you know how it starts, right? It's, you know, be a living sacrifice, be transformed, you know, you kind of know that's the, that's the famous part of chapter 12.

Jim: Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought.

Mark Tjernagel: Yeah. Yeah. You know, as you get down past those first few verses, though, it says, Hey, you're all part of the body that has many members. You have different gifts, but you all need each other. And I'd say that like organizationally, like CRU needs, the navigators. CRU needs Wycliffe. CRU needs iWork4Him ministries. CRU needs the Christian Leadership Alliance. Like we all need each other. We can't forget that. You know, if you get past that, the body section in the chapter, it gets even better. It's just like this list. It's like: be devoted to one another, honor one another, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, you know, rejoice for those who rejoice, you know, live in harmony, don't be proud.

Like it just tells you that stuff. And yet you look at our, our Christian culture today and there's so much tearing one another down, needing to be right. You know, we're right. You're wrong. We need to do this that way. And so my admonition to our listeners today is we're, we're all part of the body of Christ.

Let's do everything we can to build up the body and to not tear it down.

If anybody's

Jim: ever driven through Atlanta, you know, the, the, when you get to the widest section of the freeway on 75, going north it's 20 lanes wide, that's really the body of Christ. We may be all running in our own lane, but we still are all part of a major freeway going in the same direction.

And, and how do we run in the lanes next to each other? And some, we run with people and some, we run alongside people who are in a different lane, but yet there are synergies to be had. Well, if we can do that, then Jesus- what he said in John 17 about, you know, people will know your mine if you guys walk in unity. How powerful would that be on the impact across around the globe? It would be fantastic. Mark Tjernagel, thank you so much for being on the Outcomes Conference Podcast today. Really appreciate your time, your wisdom, and just sharing how CRU has been dealing with all of the transitions over the last couple of years. Thank you, Mark Tjernagel.

And you our Outcomes Conference Podcast listeners. Thank you for joining us today. We pray the Podcast inspired you to higher thinking and deeper thinking and really all about learning about how to help your organization thrive in those in your organizations thrive for a greater kingdom impact.

Martha: Be sure to visit Christian Leadership Alliance.org, where you can stay up to date by subscribing to the Outcomes online newsletter and the Christian Leadership Alliance Higher Thinking blog.

Jim: But if you're not already a member of the Christian Leadership Alliance, what are you waiting for? Join the Alliance today. Christian Leadership Alliance.org.

Martha: Remember the wisdom in this Podcast came to you on its way to someone else. If you loved it, say so, and then share it with a friend.

Jim: I'm Jim.

Martha: I'm Martha.

Jim: We'll see you again for the next episode of the Outcomes Conference Podcast.

Outro: Did you know that God has a calling on your life? It's true. He's called you to bring Jesus to the world. For some that may look like a pulpit or a foreign mission field, but for most of us, it looks like a construction site, the cubicle, a hospital, or a classroom. Wherever it is that you work, live, volunteer, and invest - that is your mission field.

To learn more about integrating your faith into your work in retirement, check out our books: iWork4Him, sheWorks4Him, and iRetire4Him by going to, iWork4Him.com/ bookstore. Thank you for listening to the, iWork4Him Podcast with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Please visit iWork4Him.com to learn more about connecting your faith and work to join iWork4Him Nation or subscribe to our weekly blog.

You can also follow us on social media @ iWork4Him to stay up to date and meet our guests. If today's message spoke to you, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite Podcast platform. Your review will launch more workplace missionaries across America. That's @ iWork4Him and online iWork4Him.com.