8/16/23 - 2003: Don't Quit Your Day Job

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

Martha: And we are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. 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: Perhaps the single most devastating sentence I ever hear is this: I've decided to quit my job and go into full time ministry. This one sentence describes the condition of the hearts and minds of millions of workplace Christians. It is a misunderstanding that stops today. You don't need to quit your job to go into full time ministry. You are already a full time, fully funded, fully trained missionary.

You are fully equipped and fully enabled to enter your mission field. You understand the language and the culture and you already love the people. Your mission as a Jesus follower - everything about you has been changing and everyone around you is now benefiting from your faith. Whether they believe in Jesus or not. May your vibrant faith pave the way into life transforming conversations as you love your neighbor on your workplace mission field. Today We're going to go deeper into this conversation with Mark Whitacre. Mark is the VP of Culture and Care with Coca Cola Consolidating and the Executive Director with T Factor. Mark, thanks for joining us today. It's been a few years.

Mark, when you got out of prison, where you became a follower of Jesus, and God allowed you to start life all over again, did you struggle with the thoughts of wanting to work in full time ministry?

Mark Whitacre: I tell ya, I didn't. I was discipled by two guys. One named Ian Howells and the other one by Chuck Colson. And during that discipleship, man, and they were telling me often that there's no better place for ministry than the workplace and Chuck Colson even shared examples with me. For example, Jesus is in scripture 132 times, 132 times publicly in scripture and out of those publicly places, 122, 92 percent of his public appearances were in the Marketplace.

So as Chuck said, there's no better place, even Jesus showed us, for ministry, than the workplace, because that's where the lost are, and that's where the people are. Even the twelve disciples, all came from the Marketplace, and after Jesus discipled them for three years, they went back in the Marketplace to share the truth, to share the good news.

Martha: Mark, you are so blessed to have had that kind of discipleship and training, wisdom being spoken into you. But in fact, there was a time then that you transitioned into the nonprofit space. So what did it feel like for you then to then be in what everybody else considers full time ministry?

Mark Whitacre: Even when I joined, I got out a couple decades ago, out of prison and I joined a biotech company, but it was a faith based company, a Christian CEO. And we had prayer groups and Bible studies and doing it God's way. And then I joined CBMC, Christian Businessmen Connection. I was there almost eight years where we equipped other leaders to do the same, but it was really to equip business leaders to show them just like what you described, that there's no better place for ministry than the workplace itself. And I was blessed to hear that starting about 25 years ago during being discipled.

Jim: It's such a gift because so many of everybody listening and us on the show never heard that message. We weren't discipled that way. And it always felt like we were second tier. It always felt like we just weren't as important in the kingdom as those people who are called into full time ministry. So grateful that God enabled you to be ministered to in that fashion and to be discipled in that fashion. Now you're back in the Marketplace as the chief culture officer for Coca Cola Consolidating and the executive director for T Factor.

How did this move put you back in the trenches and right on the mission field?

Mark Whitacre: And I want to really emphasize, Martha and Jim, that you are so right. Even our CEO, 23 years ago, When he became chairman and CEO, he was told that don't bring your faith to work. Don't pray, don't have prayer groups, don't have chaplaincy.

And he really looked into that and saw how untrue that is. It's Satan's biggest lie to try to tell us that we can't be on mission. We can't be missionaries in the Marketplace. And he found out how untrue that is. And so for 23 years now, we have chaplaincy, we have prayer groups, we have Bible studies, over a hundred Bible studies, and it has transformed our culture, it's changed our retention rates, our absenteeism, we do it for God.

Actually, our official purpose statement is to honor God in all we do by serving others, pursuing excellence and growing profitably. We do it for God, but God blesses our business in turn. And we'll have over 3, 000 CEOs and senior leaders at our T Factor events just this year, at nine events.

And it's amazing. Almost all of them, literally 95 percent plus thought they could not be missionaries in their workplace. They thought what you were sharing just a few minutes ago, that you can't bring your faith to work and you have to quit your job to go into into ministry. And T Factors really opened a lot of their eyes that they can, and they actually are, and there's actually no better place for ministry than right where we work.

Martha: And that's why we love to talk to people like you, Mark, that are really living that out, that are showing, paying it forward, in a sense, by telling other people what you learned, that your workplace is a mission field, no matter what it looks like. No matter what that mission field workplace is, it is the place where they can share Jesus and the light of Christ, really.

Jim: It's just so important that we recognize. For us, it was, we had a call in our lives that was to full time Christian ministry. We committed ourselves to that. We just didn't understand that was as entrepreneurs, as people in the Marketplace. And it was so important for us to make that transition, but it took us 20 years of working to understand that's what the call was.

And Mark, I want to make sure everybody listening today understands. You don't need to quit your job to go into full time ministry. All you need to do is shift the thinking of your mind. You need to do a Romans 12: 2 kind of thing. Change the way you think because God wants to use you right where you're at, And Martha, we don't want to make today's show about us. If you want to hear more of our story, you can read it in our books. You'll go to iWork4Him iWork4Him. com forward slash bookstore and Get a copy of our iWork4Him book where Martha And I write our story and also write a lot of encouragement to you for living out your faith in your work.

Martha: That was well said, Jim, because, we are excited to be able to share with others the journey we've been on, but today, Mark, we are talking about the journey that not only you have had, but the people that you have helped to train and to disciple in all the different ways to understand that their workplace is their mission field. So how do you respond? When people say to you, Oh, I've decided to quit my job and go into full time ministry. What would your response to that question be or comment?

Mark Whitacre: Yeah, my response is quick and it's you're already in ministry. And there's no better place just like Jesus showed us. There's no better place for ministry than the Marketplace. After Jesus discipled Peter, he didn't quit being a fisherman and go do something else in ministry. Peter got back on that boat at the Sea of Galilee and he was fishing to make a living, but in addition to fishing and making a living, he was also fishing for men and sharing the good news and sharing the gospel.

And when you really look at Matthew 28: 19, it's not really go and make disciples. If you really look at the translation in detail, it's as you go. Go and make disciples of all nations. That means as we do our work. Just at Coca Cola Consolidating alone, we have 17, 000 employees. Just in 2022 alone we had 557 salvations and recommitments. The year prior it was 644 salvations. That's almost 600 salvations and recommits per year.

There's no better place. I don't even know of a church that's having that many salvations and recommits, I think there's no better place than the workplace. There's no better place really for ministry than the workplace itself.

Jim: So you operate within a company, Coca Cola Consolidating, which is kingdom focused for sure, but publicly traded a fortune 500. It's probably more like a fortune 100 company. I forgot to look that up. Sorry, you got 104 locations, as you said 17 000 employees So we're going to talk about T Factor in a second, but each one of those employees, 17 000 employees, how do you help them to understand the significance of their workplace mission field?

Mark Whitacre: We do this when we onboard them, that we really emphasize our purpose statement, which I mentioned earlier is to honor God in all we do by serving others and pursuing excellence and growing profitably. And then we say, you don't have to be a Christian to work here. To be honest with you, we pray that a lot of them's not because we want to expose it.

It's an outreach opportunity. We want to expose them to God and introduce them to God. So we say, you don't have to believe in God to join us, but our 10 values, those are non negotiable, which is accountability, morality, integrity. And so there's 10 values are non negotiable, but once they join our company, they see our purpose statement lived out loud.

They see a chaplain in every plant site. That's full time. They see over a hundred prayer groups and Bible studies and each corner there's a Bible study ongoing or a prayer group. And they say, Hey, what's that? What's going on there? And they get just to the actions of their leaders that are listening carefully that have empathy for them.

Our leadership training is scripture based. It's called LEADS. L for listen, E for empathy. A for to be an advocate for your employees. D to help your employees develop. S for self reflection and prayer. These are scripture based leadership training. And when they have supervisors that are listening to them carefully, have empathy for them and their family, they just see through their action that something's different going on here and they start exploring God. And many of them become Christians in this journey.

Martha: You know what I love, Mark, about hearing, not only your excitement for Coca Cola Consolidating and all that, God has opened the doors for you as a company to understand your lane that you're in, but your leadership has defined all of these things that you want to do for your employees, to show them Jesus Christ and the love that he has.

You've done something really amazing, and we want to just highlight that for just a little bit, and that is through T Factor, which really is this outward way for you to show others what Coca Cola Consolidating is doing because God has shown you those things to do. So talk about that for a minute and explain that.

Mark Whitacre: Yeah, the mission of T Factor, which really is just the internal, it's really how we share what we're doing internally, where we share with the world. And the mission statement of T Factor is to transform workplace cultures around the globe for good, for God and for growth. And we actually have over 3000 leaders just attending this year.

And these are CEOs and senior leaders, Christian CEOs and senior leaders, where they can come and attend and get a flavor and get a firsthand glance of what we're doing internally, where they can go implement some of these things in their own companies to integrate faith and become a purpose driven company and see that their company really is a ministry. We're a beverage company. We're really a ministry that happens to be in the beverage business.

Martha: So when people come to that half day event, we're going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute. But what kind of impacts are you seeing? What kind of results are you hearing from people when they attend?

Mark Whitacre: Yeah, at this point, we've talked to, actually done surveys with over 2000 people over the last five years that have attended T Factor. And we've learned that 68 percent of our attendees implement something different in their company that they didn't do before after they attend T Factor, within 90 days. And prayer groups probably the is the most immediate because that's a fairly simple to do and then bible studies, many of them hire chaplains and start having chaplaincy in their company there. They start increasing their giving .And they start putting God in their purpose statement. But 68 percent implement something from T Factor within 90 days.

Jim: So we got a chance to attend your T Factor event just recently. And there was, it was amazing of all the different people you had from within your organization that shared about how you've implemented T Factor within your organization and really T Factor just shows how you impacted culture within Coca Cola Consolidating. Yes, you had the CEO, but you also had people from multiple different layers within the company share about this is what it looks like.

What are some of the highlights people would see or hear if they attended the next T Factor event? Just give me a couple of them.

Mark Whitacre: They hear from some of our top leadership. They hear from our CEO and chairman, Frank Harrison, where he shares the vision that God put on his heart over 23 years ago, that Coca Cola Consolidating it's God's company and he is chairman and CEO, is a steward of that company. So they hear from him. Then they hear from David Katz, our COO, how we implement it within the organization. They will hear from legal, from two key legal corporate lawyers that share by how all this is legal. You can't force someone to see a chaplain. You can't force someone to become a part of a prayer group. As long as you make it optional, it's legal.

Jim: Wait a minute. Wait. You're inviting people to come to a half day event and you're going to bring lawyers on?

Mark Whitacre: It's critical. And that's been one of the most impactful sessions where people see this is because a lot of these companies are told from their legal department or HR department that they can't do this. So we share that this is Satan's biggest lie. And then they hear from our vice president of HR from human resources, how we do onboarding when you're hiring many of those non Christians in a company that's faith based and purpose driven, how we do that. And then they hear from our giving department, how it's changed our giving and much higher than the average publicly traded companies giving is and we give to nonprofits that have Jesus included when a lot of publicly companies would not give to nonprofits that have Jesus included.

Then they hear from a chaplaincy, the president of corporate chaplains of America and he'll share, the impact of chaplaincy on our culture. And we'll share about the retention rates and the absenteeism, basically the impact this has. Our employees are more, our teammates are more engaged by having a culture that cares for them.

Jim: It's so powerful. And as you listen to this podcast, in a little bit we're going to tell you how you can get signed up for the next T Factor event through an email to either Martha or myself. But Mark, we're just so grateful that as a publicly traded company, Coca Cola Consolidating with 104 locations and 17, 000 employees has seen fit to shape your culture around Jesus, to give people hope.

Hundreds and thousands of people over the last several years have met Jesus, but also are experiencing a positive work environment. And you're telling people that just because we're traded on the NASDAQ, doesn't mean we can't honor Jesus with our work. And that is a message that needs to go out across the country. And we're just so excited about that.

Martha: One of the things that we love is telling stories and being able to encourage people with what we're hearing, and that's why we get to hear from you, Mark, and what God's done in your life and all of the employees. And we're going to, Jim, in the show notes a little bit later, we're going to encourage people to email you for something, but I just want to remind people that there are a lot of ways to get a hold of us.

So go to our website, iWork4Him. com, and you can see all the different ways to stay connected to our show. Most importantly, if you have some feedback or something that you want to share with us, go to our contact page and reach out to us with an email. There is nothing more precious than when we hear from the listeners and maybe what God is doing in your life or how this show is challenging you to something new in your own workplace, seeing it as your mission field. So I encourage you to reach out to us on our contact page.

Mark Whitacre: I want to emphasize, iWork4Him as a partner of Coca Cola Consolidating's T Factor and we are grateful for that partnership opportunity. We're grateful for what Martha and Jim do, and we are blessed tremendously by the things that they do in the Marketplace about exposing that there's nothing more important than having Jesus at the center of our work.

Jim: Amen to that. Mark, I'm sure that if we said, hey, give us some highlight stories from past T Factor events, you could come up with thousands of them. Do you have a favorite story?

Mark Whitacre: Yes, one of my favorite stories is CEO Richard Williams. He's CEO of Lenage. He's in six different states. He attended T Factor, and he's been one of our most engaged participants.

We've become wonderful friends also. And the story about how T Factor's impacted him and what he's done since then has been remarkable.

Jim: We'd like to welcome Richard Williams to the iWork4Him podcast. Richard, thanks for being with us today.

Richard Williams: Thank you, Jim and Martha for having me.

Jim: Oh we can't wait to hear your story. It just, oh yeah, you guys long time connected, I'm sure. Richard, Why don't you to start us off with how did you hear about T Factor?

Richard Williams: I heard about T Factor, I heard rumors about it because they're in the same city that I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, but I heard about it specifically through C12, which is a Christian CEO's group that I belong to here in Charlotte.

Martha: And when you heard about it, what was it that made you decide that you wanted to be an attendee?

Richard Williams: When I decided to bring God into my business six years ago, I know about Hobby Lobby and their story and Chick fil A and those, but Coca Cola Consolidating was in my backyard and I knew their story and I went to their website and I went to Movement Mortgage's website, which is also my backyard.

And I'm like, if they can live with God in their company, I can do it too. And so as we were transforming in that way in my company, six years ago, I showed those two companies in particular. And so I have to say I was biased and really wanted to go to the T Factor because it was put on by a company that I had a great respect for and I wanted to learn about what was the T Factor and what did it have to offer for me?

Martha: So when you went on that very first day do you remember what your biggest takeaway was right away after attending?

Richard Williams: Sure. There's a couple things that I remember from that first day. One is really how bold their CEO is for Christ. Frank, I think he must have used about 17 or 18 Bible verses in his conversation. And I'm like, he is so bold for Christ. So I was energized by that to start. Secondly chaplaincy. We were in the beginning stages of bringing chaplaincy into my company. We were a newer company to having God as part of our company and being the leader of it and me stewarding it. And people in my leadership team just couldn't understand how we could even have chaplaincy and a Christian business.

That was foreign to them. And so that was a big takeaway of we can have it and I pointed our leadership team back to that I'm like if Coca Cola Consolidating can have it with 17 000 employees my company with 150 employees can have it.

Jim: So as the leader of Lineage, found online at trust lineage. com, You saw that initial impact. A couple things to just take away from day one. But now it's been a lot of years. Over time, how has attending a T Factor event impacted the culture and really the overall vision and execution of what Lineage does on a day to day basis?

Richard Williams: Sure. So one of the things that we do is when we hire new leaders, I send them to T Factor. Because many of my employees come out of the secular world where they've never been exposed to this way of living before. And so I, they know where I stand, but I want them to see a company that's much bigger, much larger, and publicly traded, that's living for Jesus in the different ways, whether that be Bible study, prayer, chaplaincy, second chance ministries.

So it gives them a chance to see from somebody else's point of view. And also a company that's further along in their walk. We're at six years in our walk now. They're at 23. So they're quite a bit ahead of us in many respects.

Jim: Before we get on the next, which you said something a little bit ago, I want to go back to it for a second. You said, I just, when I decided to bring God into my business, what was that catalytic event that said oh, I got something off. I need to let God into this? What was it that triggered you to understand that was so critical to what you were doing?

Richard Williams: We could spend 35, 40 minutes talking about that offline but the short version is this: I didn't want to just live my faith on Sunday anymore. I want to live it seven days a week and I wanted my faith life to be in alignment with my work life. And so I didn't want to have two different lives, a secular life and a faith life. I wanted them to be one. That's the super short version of that.

Martha: And so many times it's the Holy Spirit working in our lives that gets us to that point, and we never know who's going to be around to help us with that process. But thankfully you got exposed to T Factor and that really helped you with that transition. I would love to hear how attending T Factor and implementing some of the things that you've learned, how it personally has affected your leadership.

Richard Williams: Sure. I think how T Factors personally affected my leadership is, we know what the rules of the road are, right? We know what the boundaries are, so that's helpful to know as we know we can be bold for Christ. We can have Bible study and prayer, but you also have to be thoughtful within that, right?

What they'll talk about in T Factor is you can't just knee jerk a reaction about something that's a hot topic or a hot subject matter. You have to be thoughtful because having sloppy agape or sloppy Jesus, if you will, leads to problems. So you want to be thoughtful and that came through in the T Factor and we've had some of those things come up, what would we do if this happened or that happened?

And we took our time and we thought about it from a legal perspective. And, I've reached out to my friends at Coca Cola Consolidator or to Mark, say how would you handle this? Or what does that look like? To understand, because when you take your time and make a decision by using your brain and just not emotion, you keep yourself in a much better place. It's been a good impact.

Jim: It's fabulous. Thank you for sharing that Richard. How would you say T Factor has impacted your organization? Where's the biggest impact from? Really allowing T Factor to infiltrate the culture of your organization, the very mission of your organization - what's the biggest impact in your organization to date?

Richard Williams: I think you have to go to chaplaincy first, and the reason I say that is for this reason: you're either in a crisis, going into one, or coming out of one, and we have faced some major crises. I hope I don't choke up, because this one's pretty recent. Like last week we faced major crises in my business, and we have a way to care for our people when these things happen, for our chaplaincy and our caring culture.

Last week, one of my employee's children committed suicide. And it's a difficult and heavy subject matter. It's the second time my company has dealt with this since we've had Chaplaincy in the last three or four years. That's the impact. To be able to come alongside somebody at the worst possible thing that you could ever put on a parent and to be able to be there for them in a loving and caring way. And to have the ability to do it well. Because you've learned where the boundaries are. You've learned what you can bring to the table. And caring for your employees. And that God can be in your company. You can have chaplains and you can pray for the people very openly. That's the impact.

Martha: What a hard time for your organization as a whole, but to have that in place and to know that relationships are there to strengthen and encourage along the way. I know we've talked to so many people over time that have said, I don't have a pastor, but I have this chaplain at my work. And what a gap that you're filling as a part of the mission of your business that you are running and i'm so grateful that you've taken that step and you had that. i'm sure you're grateful to have it in place for such a time as this.

Jim: Let me just ask let me just ask one of those business questions. So implementing all the stuff you learn at T Factor, did it hurt your bottom line?

Richard Williams: No, it has helped it significantly. Our revenues in the last seven years are up by 50 percent. Our profits are up. When the pandemic hit, we had a lot better retention rate than people in our industry, significantly better. So running a company that bold for Christ, that lives on his principles, and that cares for their employees and brings chaplaincy along to support people is attractive to both Christians and non Christians if done the right way.

Jim: Richard Williams, I love that you shared that. I knew the answer without even knowing because I hadn't talked to you before, but I knew that. This is not a penalty by doing these things. It makes it a better place to work. And when you have, when your employees are feeling better about where they work, it impacts the customers, the vendors, it impacts the products that you produce, the services that you provide and all in a positive way.

Mark, if our listeners, our leaders of organizations, how can they attend the next T Factor event?

Mark Whitacre: Yes, they can. We just had one in June. The next one, September 7th. And then after that, it'd be December 7th. Then we do some in person ones too, and getting ready to do one on September 19th in Tucson in person. So both virtual and in person. About a third of our audience of our virtual events are from, we've had 72 countries. attend T Factor just in the last three years and averages 25 countries per event or virtual event. So these are leaders from around the world. And yes, we'd love to have them and share this journey that we've been talking about here today.

Martha: So that's done through a personal invitation from you, Mark. So what we want to encourage our listeners to do is to email Jim at iWork4Him. com Jim at iWork4Him. com. We'll have that in our show notes. Easy to find and tell him that you're interested and he will make that connection so you can get a personal invite from Mark. And we're so grateful that you're willing to do that, Mark, and spread the word about T Factor. And we hope that people will prayerfully consider getting involved in doing like what Richard talked about, bringing God into their work and getting some help to do it well.

Jim: I Just want to ask Mark, any final thoughts? Any reaction to what Richard had to say, anything you want to close us out with before we close out the show?

Mark Whitacre: I agree fully with Richard. When people know you care, they get more engaged. They're more productive. The retention rates become higher and their turnover becomes lower. The absenteeism becomes lower. It's you do it for God, but it's also good for your business. I think if secular companies saw what was going on they would want to do a lot of this to improve their bottom line. And I remember when covid hit, our people were working overtime. We're the largest bottler and coke bottler in america, and a lot of our people working overtime. But a lot of their spouses lost their position because they worked at a restaurant or a cinema or a university, some of the things that were closed down and went remote. And a lot of those lost their positions and, they still had mortgage to pay and college tuition to pay.

And we put a benevolence fund together and helped cover hundreds of our teammates' families, when they went from a two income family to one income family. And keep in mind we were supporting when that was when someone wasn't even working for Coke that lost their job. The Coke employer was working overtime. It was their spouse that didn't work for Coca Cola Consolidating that lost her position. But God led us to, to really assist these families financially where they could meet all their needs. And it was hundreds of them.

Jim: What a great opportunity.

Martha: I just think about the fact that all of that was possible because Romans 12: 2, one of our favorite verses where it says, don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

And the leadership and organizations all over the world are allowing God to change the way they think about their work. And we hope that our listeners have been able to do that today, too. And see, let God transform you and change the way you think about your faith at work.

Jim: And you might want to check out T Factor online for yourself, T Factor. com, T Factor. com. That'll get you some more information. And if you'd like that personal invite, just email iwork4him. com, jim at iwork4him. com. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace is our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.