8/23/23 - 2004: Put Some Pep in Your Prep

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for 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: As a Jesus follower who is on mission in our workplace mission field, we must prepare ourselves daily for our work. We can't just rush around all morning long, hop in the car, run down the hallway, without being ready for the place God is sending us today. We can't just jump into the driver's seat of our work truck, walk the parking lot of our car dealership, sit in the maintenance shack of our lumberyard, sit in the cab of our heavy equipment, or sit in the driver's seat of our taxi cab without preparing our hearts properly.

Whatever your work is, we can't just rush in and get started. We need to be ready. We need to prepare ourselves. What do you do to prepare yourself to bring Jesus in you to meet others who need to meet Jesus in you on a daily basis? Steve McLean is here today sharing how God has led him to help you prepare daily for your work.

Martha and I might have another few thoughts to add on at the end, but we're super grateful that Steve McLean is here with us today. Steve, welcome to iWork4Him.

Steve McLean: Oh, it's an honor to be here. Absolutely.

Jim: Steve, were you always ready to live out your faith at work?

Steve McLean: Honestly, no. I don't think I really realized that was part of the job. When I first go to work, even though you grow up Christian, you really don't, you don't think of it, at least I didn't think of it as a mission field. But then as I got more and more mature in my faith, it did do that. It did kind of dawn on me. Okay. These guys that I work with, they are my neighbors.

And and I'm supposed to be the light of Christ to them. But then the second obstacle came in where you're thinking, okay, how do I do that? How do I do that without offending people or getting in trouble? And it's awkward. It's been in my heart for many years and I used to do it in some ways that we don't have time to go into, but it didn't work very well. But as I matured in my faith, I was able to get a little better at it., finding out that it's not as hard if you keep a mindset of that workplace, you're not there by mistake.

Martha: So do you have any way that you can pinpoint what actually helped you to look at that differently? What helped you to have a paradigm shift about your workplace mission field?

Steve McLean: It was slow at first. Like I said, it was as I matured, but I'll tell you what really keyed me was I bought a business. I was an engineer by education. I was working in the engineering field, and I went to the dark side and bought a business. And this business had a meeting called FCCI. It was a bunch of, it was like eight, maybe seven, eight businessmen that all sat around the table every week. And they talked about how they made their business a platform. Some of them didn't own businesses. They were just higher managers, but they said that's their platform for ministry. And they invited me to this meeting just to sit in and I'll tell you, that was like, scales falling off my eyes. I was like, wow, this is an absolute integration of who I am on Sunday to Monday.

Martha: So what did that look like then in your new business as you had the scales fall off of your eyes and you probably started to implement some maybe biblical principles in your work? I'm not exactly sure, but what did it look like and how did that change this very business that you bought?

Steve McLean: It gave me a platform. It said, okay, I have a platform. Now I had a platform in the engineering world. I wish I would've used it better, but I wasn't. And that's part of why His Word at Work is out there. It's not just for business owners. It's for anybody that goes to work because we do have a platform no matter where we are.

But what it did for that business is I realized that, wow, there's a lot of latitude to really be able to integrate. And these people that show up every day that are looking at me as an authority figure and listen to me when I speak that a lot of people would never darken the door of a church and here they are every day with me. So I thought, wow, I got a mission. And it just, it was with perfect clarity that FCCI brought that to my attention.

Jim: So you recently quote unquote retired and that could be a whole nother conversation for a whole nother world and another show really. IRetire4Him. Maybe that'd be a good one.

But yet every day, you're spending a couple of hours every day writing a daily devotional, which is shared online at His Word at Work. org. His Word at Work. org. Why did you start doing this?

Steve McLean: First of all, I'm not retired. I sold the business. Now I bought another business and that's why I'm here. And it's definitely not retirement. But to answer your question, the reason I did it is because I believe that there are, I'll bet you 80, 90 percent of the people we sit next to in pews on Sunday, don't know how, or don't even see the mission that they have every day, Monday through Friday. But the people that God placed right next to them, they just don't realize it.

They think that's work. We have this unconscious barrier between our secular and our sacred. And His Word at Work is meant to break through that. Wow. They listen to this and they think, I could do that. And yeah, I am the light in my workplace, and they think of people that claim to be atheists, and they claim to see people that are struggling or they realize they sit right next to somebody that's struggling. And they can be that light and His Word at Work is hopefully a devotional that allows them to really see that. Wow. My Sunday and Monday are not that far apart.

Martha: I know that when you teach things and you write things and you share them with other people, we often learn as we're going through that process, Steve. So for you, how has it impacted yourself as you have been shifting gears from one business to another as you prepare and present His Word at Work?

Steve McLean: I can tell you in all honesty, and I think this is with any Bible teacher or anything, a lot of those are my own struggle. They represent things that, man, I need to remember I'm task oriented. So I go to work and I'm like all about my checklist and I can zoom right by people. So I have to have this mindset when I get up in the morning that, okay, I'm going on mission and all the business stuff I'm going to do today is probably going to be forgotten. It'll probably forgotten next week, let alone next year.

But there's eternal things that God is going to be asking me to do. And having that eternal perspective going in, you start the Bible studies, you stop and you talk to people about whatever is it's going on. You look at people and you try to see them not as employees or a vendor or a customer, but these are divine appointments and that they're in your life on purpose.

There's not a grain of sand that slips through God's fingers, right? We are right where we're supposed to be. And having that mindset, and I'll tell you, His Word at Work puts me in that mindset to go be the person I'm called to be. And I thought, you know what, if the Lord is working on me like this, why not share it? Why not get it out there to the rest of the millions of people that are Christians that are going to work and just give them a little bit of encouragement, maybe some practical advice.

Jim: I love that. And I apologize. I thought you had retired. I didn't know you went off and you had a little bit of break and you bought another business.

Steve McLean: I bought it by mistake. I, it's a long story, but here I am with my son. So that's for some other time.

Jim: That's probably, yeah, that's probably another show. But speaking of all those shows, Martha, I co host, iRetire4Him with my buddy, Bruce Bruinsma. And we talk about that every day retiree. But Steve, they got the same issue. They're trying to realize how do they take their daily retirement and make it matter for God? Because when, if you're not dead, God's not done with you yet. I always like to say, if you're not dead, God's not done. And your calling doesn't retire when you do. And so many people have a misperception about that.

On a bi weekly basis, we release the, iRetire4Him podcast. And you can go out to iWork4Him. com and just click on the iRetire4Him logo and check out that podcast or subscribe to it on any of your favorite podcast platforms. But we all will put in the show notes how you can listen to iRetire4Him. In case you do retire, just know God's not done with you yet til your last breath.

Martha: Thanks for sharing that, Jim. Steve, it's one thing to write daily devotionals and put them out there on the web, but it's another thing to know that they're impacting other lives. And today, you invited a few of your friends who read the daily devotional to share how they're being impacted each and every day. And so we have Josh and Mike that are both joining us for this section of the show, and I want to welcome both of them to the show as they're getting their cameras on and joining us so we can just continue this conversation because there's nothing better than getting the feedback from the people that are actually ingesting and allowing God to work in their lives. So Josh and michael. Thank you both so much for joining us.

Jim: So Mike, what I love about this fact and those of you guys watching on video just understand now, I just learned right before the show that Mike is actually Steve's mentor and Steve is actually Josh's mentor. And so you're looking at a generational mentoring, which is what everybody needs: a paul, a barnabas, and a Timothy in their life. And this is a great example of it. Thanks for living that out gentlemen. Yes, because we need to be pouring into ourselves intergenerationally. So I love it. So Mike, are you retired? Are you still working?

Michael Etchison: I'm still working. I'm in the commercial real estate business. And like Steve I think that this platform has been God ordained for me to be able to use the connections I make in my work to be a light and salt and have the opportunity to share the gospel. I like what Paul said, about how the fact that each of us are living letters known and read of all men. And I think that's sometimes , means we, we need to be I can't remember who wrote it, but, preach the gospel all the time, and if necessary, use words.

Sometimes, you get questions. Why are you this way? And yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I don't feel like retirement's in the scriptures. And I just I like the platform because it gives me an opportunity to still be active, proactive in the gospel every day. I

Martha: Love that. It's helping you to be proactive. You want me to go back and forth?

Okay. Josh, tell us a little bit about your work, and maybe you can also tell us how you found out about his Word at Work.

Joshua Claro: I am working at Kennedy space center currently. I've been there for about five weeks, five weeks this week. I'm very new to my new position. Right now, that is just His Word at Work is doing awesome because it really gets you in the mindset of getting into the workplace and having God really know what your mission field is. And Steve has been my mentor for a while, and when he started telling me about these devotionals and he signed me up for it automatically so I listen to him every day.

Jim: He needed at least one person signed up!

Joshua Claro: Yeah, or I'll let them stack up and then listen to them consecutively. But I'll really save the ones that really are impactful to me. And so Steve is awesome because he has the real world experience because I'm living in that every day and there's a battlefield every day with a negativity and there's just, God isn't really, especially in space, like people forget who the creator is shockingly, and they just can't fathom like all this stuff was made by God. So when you bring it back into the reality of things, really the mission field is great

Jim: Yeah, it's hard to believe that anybody can look out in space and now that we've got telescopes. When we were kids, nobody knew what those stars looked like. Today we know what stars look like four billion light years from now and you're like the complexity of the universe and the dark space, they're all trying to figure out what's this dark space holding everything together. Maybe the hand of God! I love the fact that you guys have both highlighted His Word at Work in a couple of different fashions.

And again, listeners, if you want to get signed up for this, I get this devotion every day, His Word at Work. org, it comes in written form. And as Josh just said to that, it comes in video form. You can listen to Steve, read that daily devotional. So in case you're shaving or getting dressed and you want to listen to it, or maybe you're driving your car and you want to listen to it, you can get it either way. And that's just super, super powerful.

Mike, I love the fact that you're In commercial real estate, you're still pounding it every day. How does getting these daily devotionals and your interaction with Steve - because you got a guy that's younger than you that you're pouring into each other because that's what mentoring is all about is pouring into each other - how does it prepare you for those unexpected conversations you have during the day when you're dealing with clients or prospective clients?

Michael Etchison: I think, wonderfully, that Steve has a variety every day. It's some different topic every day that he's giving you to think about. And I think when we really learn how to daily walk in the Spirit and be led by the Holy Spirit, your sensitivity level is up so that you are looking for those opportunities, not only because people might ask you, but you might just feel prompted by him to say something that you wouldn't normally say.

And I do this often with clients, I'm just, wondering, or if it's not a client, it's somebody that's actually looking at a property that my client has me showing for lease or for sale. And I think His Word at Work is so good because it gives you verses of scripture. And as Steve can tell you, I've been a proponent for decades of memorizing scripture. And it just is so powerful when you have it memorized, the Holy Spirit can call it your remembrance, give you the very thing that you need to say, and I long ago realized that my words aren't living and active, but if I quote the scriptures, God's going to do something because of that word going out from my mouth to others.

And so I really like that for that reason, and I have a lot of my family and friends that, that listen or read his devotional every day, and I think it's also special because when Steve and I started talking about it, he has a special gifting, that God gave him that. And I think that's just wonderful that he's sharing that every day, and I try and tell him that regularly.

Martha: Josh, for you I see this opportunity with you being in a new position to really be intentional about the things that are ahead of you and each and every day's interaction. Has there been anything that has come up for you? Since you've been in your new position where you're like, huh, I'm going to be challenged in that area today because I was paying attention to it.

Joshua Claro: Oh, yeah, there is. So Steve can contest to this and my previous position in my other job I had. Some senior guys that were there and they have a way of just bringing the old ways around and the old culture. And for me I'm very fast and innovative and they don't like change. They immediately start pushing back on that change or what I have to do. It's the same thing here. It hasn't changed. So I'm really praying to God about this time. I know I'll be having a lot of discussions with Steve now about this where it's extremely challenging. So God has me saying some things and maybe doing some things when the opportunity comes to change that perspective of what I see, but I'm going to let the Holy spirit really work in it and see what happens.

And I'm fearless at this point. Even before I care but I don't care at this way, because I know God has my back. And I know that if I do it in his name, and even if I lose my job, that's why I say fearless, it's because he doesn't want me there and I don't need to be there if this is how it's going to be.

Steve McLean: Josh has led Bible studies at his work. He's taught a course called every man a warrior. So he already uses his presence in the workplace really well. He's not mentioning any of that. He's mentioned the problems, but we all have people around us that are like, it's hard to deal with. And that gives us opportunity because many of those people, they just do not know God, that God is not on their radar. And yeah, he works in the space industry where I used to work and I know how those guys are very closed off to change, but it's still an awesome platform. And like he said, believe it or not, there's a lot that deny God, and I remember a quote by Abraham Lincoln that says that he can understand how you can look down on the earth and be an atheist, but he has no idea how man can look to the stars and say, there's no God in the aerospace world.

Jim: And Abraham Lincoln didn't know what was behind those stars. Just like Abraham Lincoln didn't know what was behind those stars, and now we know, the complexity is unbelievable. What I love is that you guys just really brought up is probably a lot of people listening today going, but how do I start? How do I start my workplace mission field? What is the first step I do in order to make my work in my mind a mission field?

And we've got this thing we call the iWork4Him nation covenant, which you go on our website, just look up the iWork4Him nation. And it just starts five simple steps, but it starts with praying for the people that you work alongside by name every day, to start praying for them.

Don't tell them anything about Jesus, just pray for them, but then look for ways to serve them over and above what you are required to do with your job. Look for ways to befriend them outside of the workplace because real relationship builds outside of the workplace. But then look for ways to pray with people when you notice they're having a rough day. But all along you've got to be a person of excellence. Everything you do needs to be defined by excellence in your job so that when you do those other things they really make a difference. But it starts with praying for those people that you work alongside.

I love the fact, Steve, you've released, do you have a whole year written out? 365 of these?

Steve McLean: I probably have more than that, but then I go back and watch them. I'm like, Oh, I got to redo that. So I keep taking them down and improving them, but I don't know how many are out there.

Jim: We encourage everybody to go out to His Word at Work dot org and subscribe. But I was going to tell you that this week on our power thoughts - iWork4Him PowerThoughts, which you can subscribe on any podcast platform. Also see them on facebook. They're on radio stations across the country. Our one minute power thoughts are featuring five of Steve's devotionals where I just took the written part and took just 45 seconds of the most powerful words of them. And we read it for you and told everybody how to get to the whole devotional out there on the power thought. So on our power thought and with a link to His Word at Work. So Steve, just want to let you know, trying to get the word out across the country about what you guys are doing.

Martha: And if any of the topics change, Josh, he might be targeting some of those to help you a little bit along the journey. That would be an extra benefit, right?

Jim: So it's great when we learn about how others are consuming content and some content makes a huge difference in our lives. And we love to hear from you guys, our listeners, reach out to us on our contact us page, let us know what God is doing in your workplace mission field. We love to hear from you. iWork4Him. com. That's, I work the number for him. com forward slash contact.

Martha: Steve, as Jim mentioned, the title for this week of our show is Preparing Ourselves for Our Work. And so our blog this week focused on that very subject. And then we took parts of your devotionals and put those into our Power Thoughts for the week. So getting a whole opportunity to really focus on preparing ourselves for work. So what did you do to prepare you yourself and your heart for work?

Steve McLean: I, the Holy Spirit lately has been talking about, talking to me about really being a follower. It's one thing to be a believer, but it's a whole nother thing to be a follower, right? I just got back from Israel, where this guy that lived out in the desert, he still herds sheep and goats. It just stuck with me. He said, sheep are pretty easy to herd. Goats do what they want. The sheep will listen to the voice of the shepherd and follow. The goats, just do what they want.

And I don't want to be a goat. So I get up every morning. I say, Lord, let me follow you. Wherever you lead me, let my eyes be open. So I start with a prayer that says, I just want to follow you, Lord. So please don't let me run off in some crazy direction. And then you have to pick up the pieces for me. Let me follow. And then basically I get into scripture and try to get my mind wrapped around the word of God and just try to keep my task oriented mind, people oriented. It's the people in the end, it's going to count, and the things we do for the kingdom, that's all that's going to be remembered in eternity.

All that task list, ain't going to be remembered, even if I do it great. And it's not going to be remembered. So that's what I do. I try to get my mind wrapped around God's mission for me and me following.

Jim: Josh, what about you? How do you prepare yourself daily besides listening to Steve's great devotionals at hiswordatwork. org? What else do you do?

Joshua Claro: I do quiet times in the morning about 10 15, 20 minutes with God and go through the Bible and meditate on his word and stuff like that. And before I go into my workplace, I really, I pray for about two or three minutes asking him for really me to be a servant for him and to put someone in my path that I need to shine some light on and that's really how I start.

But like Steve, Steve hit it on the nose. We're very task oriented. And when you get in that mindset, it's really hard to pivot. It's extremely hard to pivot because you just go down the hole. You want to solve the problems, but then to be people oriented is a different mindset. And that's where I'm really trying with this new chapter in my life that God has given me and my family to really be more people oriented.

Martha: That's a really good word. And Mike, finally, you give us a little peek into what you do to prepare for your work each and every day.

Michael Etchison: Similarly I have a quiet time. I think as I looked at the outline before our meeting today, I was thinking of a verse that really in the last probably year and a half, and of course, I have a couple of guys that are on a real estate team with me. All family members. I have a nephew and a son and now a grandson. And I love the concept of Psalm 32:8 where it says, I will teach you in the way you should go and counsel you with my eye upon you.

That's pretty comforting because much has been said so far. Some days we just don't really know what we're supposed to do with other people because we are task oriented. And when we can sense that he really is counseling us with his eye upon us, that kind of makes a little bit of a difference for me. Anyway, I'm thinking about it. I know you're watching me, Lord, so help me not to step my foot in my mouth or say the wrong thing and be a servant. And I think that's a rare thing today, particularly in the workplace, is having a mentality and an attitude that I'm going to be, I'm going to figure out some way that I can serve this person and make their encounter with me a difference maker. So that's been helpful for me a lot.

Jim: Yeah, it's so important for us to recognize that our savior was always busy, but he was never in a hurry. He never missed the people that were near him and we need to reproduce that all the time. I want to thank Steve with your devotionals. Thank you for Mike and Josh for sharing your stories today. Martha?

Martha: We have shared so many resources on today's episode, and I will have the links to all of those in the show notes for everybody to make it super easy. But there's one more resource that I want to make you all familiar with. And with a donation of any size to iWork4Him, we will send you one of the copies of one of our books. We have iWork4Him, iRetire4Him, and SheWorks4Him. You can go to the iWork4Him. com forward slash donate, and when you send a check to that address or make a donation online, we would be happy to send you a copy of our book.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's 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/bookstore.

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 at iWork4Him and online at iWork4Him. com. I work the number 4 him. com.