7/26/23 - 1999: The Birth of iWork4Him

Jim: You've tuned in to iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration in the faith and work movement.

Martha: We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and 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: You know, everybody's got a story, and our story is unique, and yours is as well.

Today, we're going to jettison back to almost 17 years ago to the origins of iWork4Him. You see, in 2006 or before 2006, I was one of those people. I was a believer in Jesus who lived out my faith vibrantly on the weekends, but on Monday, I switched it off and operated in business just like everybody else.

I was one of those people who would embarrass Jesus with how I worked and how I behaved in the marketplace. I was one of those guys, but this is a story of how God took me from who I was to who he could use more effectively. Martha, let's get started telling a little bit of our story.

Martha: Sounds like a great idea, Jim.

Jim: You know, our story, our stories intersected when we were 13 years old.

Martha: They did. You know, it's pretty cool because God had an idea that we didn't have any idea of. And when we were 13 years old at a youth conference, we both committed our lives to full time Christian ministry. And did not know what that would really mean for the future, but of course we assumed it would mean some staff position in a church or a mission field, and we met three years later and discovered that we both had that same call on our lives.

Jim: It is pretty amazing when you think that God intersected our lives as 13 year olds with that commitment to full time Christian ministry, but honestly, back then and even today when somebody commits themselves to full time Christian ministry, where do you think they're gonna go? Well, you naturally think that they're called to work in a church, maybe be a pastor of a church, or go be a foreign missionary somewhere. That's what we're talking about today because that is not what it means. It could mean that, but for the most part, 99. 5 percent of us, that call to full time ministry is right where you work. Alright, so, Martha, what's really cool is that we met, we were in high school, we did a lot of ministry together, and then we decided to what?

Martha: Uh, get married?

Jim: Yeah! Get married!

Martha: Well, we dated, and then we got married. We did and in that whole process, Jim, we both felt very compelled to business. We both loved aspects of business. You know, I dreamt of working in a high rise at one point wearing a navy blue suit every day thinking that that was where God had me. And we always had this tension with our entrepreneurial bend and our, our desire to, fix things and make, make things work and organize things and bring order into chaos for people's businesses and things like that.

How did we do that and still live out this call that we felt that we had on, or we knew that we had that call on our life? But we didn't understand how it would fit in with being entrepreneurs and running our own business. And that was a real struggle for us.

Jim: So when we got done with our degrees, we got married. We get done with our degrees. Yes in that order. Then we bought our first house and right after we bought our first house I enrolled in seminary because I thought, well, the natural thing, if we're going to fulfill the call on our lives to full time Christian ministry, I need to go to seminary if I'm going to be a pastor. So I enrolled in seminary and God sends the senior pastor of our church to me and says, Jim, I don't think you can handle having 400 bosses.

I just don't see that your call is to pulpit ministry, ministry within the four walls of the church. You see, because pastors, everybody in the pews, they're the bosses of the pastor. And I was kind of entrepreneurial, and that can be a little rough, and so I unenrolled from seminary.

Martha: And you did that more than once. We had different occasions where, you know, we thought, okay, maybe now it's time to be in seminary. And in the meantime, Jim, you know, we had business people around us that were basically giving us the example and even using words to say, you know, your role in the church is to be on a finance committee or to help raise money for the new building. Work and church are very separate and that's how we were told to keep them.

And so, you know, we worked with the youth, we volunteered in the church and music and I was the treasurer. We did lots of different things like that. But we didn't see that this entrepreneur of this business, the nine to five - it wasn't really nine to five, so I hate to call it that, but that those working hours were not really ministry.

Jim: It was sad and to have the mentors in our lives that we did, we just really were confused and we constantly felt that tug like we just need to work really hard so we could support the ministry that we did do outside of our work and the church that we were a part of. But it was, it was a frustration and, and really what were you going to jump in and say?

Martha: I just want to say, I bet you there's a lot of people listening right now that can relate to that, that they have, have either grown up with this idea that there is a disconnect between ministry and work. And what they should do about that, you know, that, that tension that we were feeling when we weren't living out this calling that we felt like we had on our life.

I would imagine that many of you have struggled with that as well. And that's why you're listening to this show, because you are wanting to find new ways to better connect, make that connection and better understand God's idea of work.

Jim: Yeah, I got tired of living with the guilt. I mean, I was constantly feeling guilty, like I had made this commitment to God as a 13 year old to full time Christian ministry, and I wasn't doing it.

I was 33 years old and I still wasn't doing this full time ministry thing. And yet, none of the pastors who had stopped me from going into seminary because I really wasn't called to being the pastor of a pulpit pastor or a church pastor, none of them had the language to say, Jim, you're really called to be in the marketplace.

Martha, what's really cool is that we took time to share our stories, to write our stories down in a book. And we'd love for you, our audience, to get a copy of those books. And we've tried to price them as reasonable as possible. Martha, we've made it so that people can get PDF copies of our books really easy.

Martha: Yes. So, you have several options, but if you go to our website, iWork4Him. com, and go to the bookstore, you will see there an option to actually purchase the PDF download so you can get the book today. You don't need to wait for anything to deliver to you. If you do that, they're just 5 dollars. And if you select - we have three titles, iWork4Him, sheWorks4Him, and iRetire4Him. And if you choose two of the titles, you get the third one free automatically. So you don't have to make a choice. So for 10 dollars, you can get all three PDFs of the book for you to take yourself and to read and to hear more about the story. Not because it's this great story, but because we see the story that God has written.

And, like you said at the beginning of the show, Jim, everybody has a story. God is writing a story in each one of us, and what we know to be true is what we do with that story.

Jim: And we think our story is going to resonate with you. And if you're like me and you like the smell of the ink, you can buy hard copies, too. Well, on paper kind, not the hard cover copies, but you know, paperbacks, there you go. Like the ones on the bookshelf right here in our YouTube video. You can get that on our website as well.

Martha: And we'll put the link in our show notes. But also Jim, if people want, you know, an audio version, what's really cool about our books - and then we'll get back to the story - is the fact that we had every author that helped contribute to our books read their own chapter. So when you get the audio version of the book, you will actually hear the voice of the person actually writing their story and it just brings it to life and has so much interest.

And you know, I think sometimes I like listening to audio books, but sometimes you when you hear the same voice for the whole time, it can get a little on and on and on. So there's no monotone involved in our audio books.

Jim: 52 different voices in our audio books! You can get them all online. Go to our website. iWork4Him. Com. It's I work the number 4 him. Dot com.

You know, Martha, I think what was amazing is that at 33, we merged our insurance agency with another insurance agency in Southwestern Minnesota, which was the beginning of a process right after we'd gone through crown financial ministries.

And we made a commitment to really making sure that our finances glorified God. That was the beginning of a process that God was - really shifted our paradigm because right after that the doctor told you hey Martha's never going to be healthy living in the frozen tundra of minnesota all the time. You guys need to get south. Go to florida. Get near the gulf coast, and that should solve most of Martha's health problems.

Martha: Which it did!

Jim: I was going to say, Oh, who doesn't like a prescription to that Gulf coast? I mean, so we moved to Florida and at 37 years old, we moved to Florida. It took four years for that to accomplish. And then we were really in crisis because we had sold everything we'd ever started.

Okay We thought well, maybe this is a chance that we're going to be in full time ministry. And I had a bucket list of things I was going to work on. And again, we were still a little confused by this whole deal. We moved into a great church, into a great small group and we were still struggling with what is the call on our lives?

But Martha found her sweet spot. What did you get to do?

Martha: I for a decade ran a christian retail bookstore and that was an amazing opportunity to see God's hand in people's lives each and every day. But yet, as we were walking this journey, Jim, of, you know, number one, being in a new place, saying, Lord, how can you use us? Learning. I don't want to steal the thunder because you know, you really had some eye opening moments with new friends that we found in Florida.

Jim: That's right. And we did. We found these great friends. So really the story of iWork4Him started in 2006. I got a new job and I was driving 90 miles to work and I'm a talk radio guy. I've been listening to talk radio all my life. And in the morning you turn on the talk radio and you listen to the blabbing thoughts all the way there and you know, it's mindless chatter. But it's sometimes fun and sometimes it's political, whatever it may be. I just made the commitment, you know, Lord, I'm not gonna listen to the radio on my commute to this new job. I'm gonna learn to pray. I just want to learn to pray. There should be power in my prayer.

I don't have power in my prayer So I just started praying .I made a commitment just to pray in the morning And I started just praying for my family. And so my kids and my grandkids, which we've got a lot of them now. Back then we didn't really, just had a couple of grandkids. Now we have a whole hassle of them, but I just started to pray.

But then my good friend Bob sent me a devotional in 2006 called Today God is First by Os Hillman. Still goes out. TodayGodisFirst.com - I believe it is, but by Os Hillman. Martha had that link in the show notes as well. And that was the very first time that I heard that my work mattered to God, that my workplace could, in fact, and is, in fact, my ministry place. A mission field full of lost and hopeless people who need to meet Jesus, and that I was placed there so that those people could meet Jesus.

I was 40 years old before anybody ever told me that. It's so ridiculous.

Martha: Well ridiculous, but yet so great because it would finally happen And so when I was alluding to new friends, Bob was one of those things. It was like, okay, the Lord had to maybe take us out of our comfort zone, take us to florida, surround us with new people that we had to meet, new jobs, new opportunities, and then we got exposed to this new concept that isn't really new, but we didn't have this understanding that our work was our mission field. That the people around us are our neighbors, the people that we're with every day, you know.

We always physically think of our neighbors in our neighborhood. But who, you know, that cubicle next to you is full of people that you're next to every day. That is a neighbor in your work. And we never really, we finally understood that and we saw that opportunity differently. And so what an amazing fresh start it was for us to look at the people that God put in our - we were authority over them. We had influence over them - we could now see them as a ministry.

Jim: It was really cool and God kind of laid those steps up so I started shifting my prayer time in the morning from not only just praying for my family I started to pray for my bosses. And at that point time I had four of them. My bosses and their families, my co workers and their families, my employees after I got some employees and their families. I started to find out what did they specifically need me to pray for.

It's just a whole process of how did I shift that paradigm in my mind to become a workplace believer? That we call the iWork4Him nation and we're going to talk about that in our next podcast, but Martha, maybe right now we should just tell people how they can see what that's all about.

Martha: Yeah. So we talked about our books and we wrote out the steps to the iWork4Him nation in there, but I will also put a link in the show notes for today about the, iWork4Him nation.

And it's not joining a group. It's not paying anything, but it's really making a commitment and saying, you know, Lord, I want to commit to these things - this new way of looking at my work. And we will talk through those steps in our next show. It's like an awakening It really is and saying I am making a commitment. I'm covenanting with you. That's a big word. To actually make a covenant to say, Lord, I want to be different and I want to commit to these items, but basically getting the mindset that every day when we go to work, Jim, it's a new opportunity to serve the Lord because we're the hands and feet.

He created us to be really good at what we do. So, why not give Him the glory? Why not, look at our work that way? And so, you can check out more when you click on the link for the iWork4Him Nation. And like we said, next week we're going to talk about it in great detail.

But what's amazing, and I want listeners to hear this, is the fact that, like, Jim, when you started that new job and you felt convicted to pray in the morning, and then God continued to open your eyes up to scripture that pertained to your work, and all these things were changing in your life, you didn't know that this was going to be like a five point covenant that people were going to, you know, commit to. You didn't know even that iWork4Him was going to exist someday. But now when we look back at it and we see how God was working in our lives, it's so amazing.

And I hope that each and every listener right now is looking at their own life and going, okay, I don't know where this is taking me, but God is walking me through some things. God is changing some things in you. And maybe it's something that we say, maybe it's something you're reading in your devotions in the morning. Maybe it is a person that you've met that has, you know, asked you some hard questions, but it's all going somewhere. God does not give us those opportunities to to lay, you know on feral ground. They are to become fertile and it's exciting now I can talk about it right now.

Jim: But I think you should probably, we need to finish telling the rest of our story.

All right, you just let me know if you're ready to go.

Martha: I'm ready. Okay, i'm ready.

Jim: So but you may be asking okay, that was 2006 But jim and martha you didn't launch iWork4Him until 2013. What happened with those seven years? Well, it took a while to really understand this.

And then once you really understood that both of our jobs, Martha's job inside of a church actually was a ministry, and that's a whole nother story. And my job in the marketplace as an insurance risk manager, which is really what I was doing on an it manager, those were more ministry places. It took a little while and then the whole world fell apart with the great recession in 20, uh, 2008 and 2009. And in florida was really rough for a lot of years. And we started another job. We started some different things and I just started to look at the behavior of other believers in the marketplace in it.

And sometimes I just want to wake up. I started to see them probably how people used to see me in it. And I'd say, please don't tell people you know Jesus, if you're going to act that way, because that's not working. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, but people look at Christians sideways out in in culture today.

Because there's so much of our behavior that doesn't go along with who they expect Jesus to be. And that's who I was, and that's what I started to see. And a lot of that comes down to the fact that most of us haven't been discipled to recognize that our workplace really is supposed to be different. That our faith is supposed to impact every hour of our day. So, we started working on this model, and I said to the Lord, Lord, I know you want me to move ahead with what we're doing here. When you give me a name - because I don't really know what you're doing but I feel like you're churning something inside of me and Martha. We were churned for years on this.

Martha: Yeah, we really were and I mean that's just part of the journey, you know. It's part of the process of God growing you and starting to change your conversations to change your heart to change where you put your put your prayer life. All of those things. And then we just really felt like God really opened the doors for us to start being able to share that.

Jim: So November 20th, 2012, Martha's at work. It's a Wednesday night. I got the name. What? You don't want to tell this part of the story? Okay. All right. I mean, that's the night I got the name. iWork4Him. I'd written down 132 different names. None of them really, really mattered.

Martha: He's a list maker.

Jim: All of a sudden, I got iWork4Him. I, Work, the number 4, him. I'm like, Wow, that's pretty good. And I so I bought the go daddy websites and free plug there and that was the beginning and I said Lord. Okay, you gave me the name now what do you want? What do you want us to do with this? I can see that we're going to be doing some mentoring and discipling of people out there in the marketplace. But what what is iWork4Him?

90 days later I was speaking at an event right before we launched the Christian Chamber of Commerce in Tampa Bay, which still is in existence today, c3tb. org, and I was talking about five ways to incorporate your faith in your workplace. And that day, after I was done speaking, I sat down in the room next to the only person I didn't know, and she looks at me and she says, what?

Martha: She says, Jim, that needs to be on the radio. This whole idea of talking about your faith in your work needs to be on the radio.

Jim: And I looked at her like she was psycho and had five eyes on her head because I'd never ever thought about being on the radio. I like being in front of people, but to make a long story short, as you know, we've now been on the radio and on podcast for a decade.

Martha: In fact, what number is this show, Jim ?

Jim: This show of iWork4Him is 1,999.

Martha: Yes. That's right. It's pretty amazing.

Jim: The next one's 2000. Wait till you get to that one. It'll be really good. Big number. So we just started talking about, we just started capturing the stories of people living out their faith at work and connecting them to resources that we've also found out there available to disciple workplace believers.

And that's really what iWork4Him has become. We're a challenging resource out there. We want to challenge you to have your faith impact all of your life. And then we want to connect you to a ministry that can do that discipleship and drive you deeper to your knees in your faith.

Martha: So I think it's crazy that you know, as we talk about this story, how it's It's been over a couple of decades, actually, that God has been working truly in this conversation for most of our, since we were teenagers, this whole idea of ministry and what does that mean.

And what's been awesome is that for 10 years, we've been hearing the stories of what God's doing in people's lives all around the world. So much cool stuff. And you have been walking on that journey, or you might be brand new to the podcast. Either way every show, we desire and attempt to show you something that God is doing so that it can inspire you or challenge you or encourage you where you are in your work. And that is really what we're here all about. So As we are recording 1999, number 1999, Jim, it's amazing to look at what

Jim: Reminds me of a Prince song. Party like it's 1999!

Martha: Hey, maybe that's why purple is one of our iWork4Him colors. But, you know, let's talk about just briefly what's ahead because, uh, it's a great question. Each one of us probably ask that every day.

Jim: How do you know what's ahead?

Martha: We really don't.

Jim: We don't know what's ahead of us. I mean, you mean like shows? You mean like what we're planning?

Martha: Where we think we're headed.

Jim: So our goal this fall is to really bring you continued great stories of people living out their faith in their work, conversations about topics that you and I just can't wait to hear about. And we're going to tie everything we do together each and every week. So our blogs that we release on friday are going to tie to the podcast that releases on Wednesday. It's just going to tie to the five One minute radio programs that we do and everything we do is going to be about a certain topic for a week Like our next podcast is all about the iWork4Him Nation. What are those five steps to shift your paradigm into a workplace, a place of ministry? In fact, your mission field.

Martha: Because we know that repetition is the key to learning.

Jim: So we're going to repeat it often.

Martha: We're going to repeat it often.

Jim: But then again, we're going to say it again. And then Repeat it.

Martha: Maybe recap it and say it again. So Okay. When we hear a great story of what God's doing in somebody's life, you know, and there's lessons to be learned if we, if we hear them in different ways and, and different soundbites, it just helps all of us in that process. So we hope that you'll go along with us on the journey.

Make sure to subscribe to the iWork4Him Power Thought, which is released every day on radio stations across the country. On all the podcast platforms, you can find the iWork4Him Power Thought as well as the iWork4Him podcast so two different streams that are out there. And on the podcast you're looking for the picture that has us celebrating 10 years.

Jim: We're also on lots of different social media.

Martha: Yes, we are. Yes, we are. So and we're attempting to get on some newer ones so be looking for us if you have a favorite, whether you're using Rumble or Truth social. These are things we're all learning. We just want to make sure that you are in a space where you are going to get your information. So let us know what that is.

So if you have any comments and you don't see us somewhere, You can just email me at martha at iWork4Him. com.

Jim: That's martha at I work the number 4 him. com In addition to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, we're out there in a lot of different places, and really, if you've got some time, watch it on YouTube. Watch our podcast on YouTube, then you can see us interacting with each other, because it's... It's kind of funny. I don't know. I mean people that know us think sometimes it's funny. You should see the things that martha does to me in the studio. But if you're just listening to the podcast, you don't know.

Martha, I would love to be able to give our story away to somebody today.

Martha: Okay. All righty So, if you are listening and you are interested in getting a copy of our book iWork4Him, let me have you email me at Martha at iWork4Him. com. So send me an email, tell me you're interested in a copy of the book, and then we will give that away on the next recording that we do, Jim. So let's do that. We'll announce it on the podcast.

Jim: So check us out online, iWork4Him . com. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, True Social, Telegram, just search for iWork4Him.

Martha: Jim, happy 1999.

Jim: 1999! I can't sing, forget that. You've been listening to the iWork4Him podcast with your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace is our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him!

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, a 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.

Thanks for listening to the iWork4Him podcast with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg.

Please visit iWork4Him. com to learn more about connecting your faith and work, to join the iWork4Him Nation, or subscribe to our weekly blog. You can also follow us on social media at 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 at iWork4Him. com. I work the number 4 him. com.