1/31/24 - 2027: EmpowHer Collaboration

Jim: You've tuned in to 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? Well, let's find out right now.

Jim: You know, Jesus prayed in John 17:20, I do not pray for these followers only as he talks to his disciples. I pray for those who will put their trust in me through their teaching they have heard. That would be us. May they all be as one, Father , as you in me, and I am in you, may they belong to us. Then the world will believe that you sent me.

Wow, what a, what a caveat, that we walk in unity, and that the world will actually believe in Jesus. And believe that the Father sent Jesus because we walk in unity. But what does that really look like to be part of the unity of the body of Christ?

What does selfless collaboration really look like in the kingdom on earth? Have you ever seen it? Have you ever experienced it? Is it really possible? Just because we say we're working in collaboration with others doesn't mean we're truly looking out for the greater result that two or more can make over what we can do separately.

What do you have to give up? What do you have to give up in order to collaborate? Are there any answers to any of these questions? What does this have to do with living out your faith at work? Well, today, Catherine Gates joins us from The Polished Network, a network dedicated to Christian working women for encouragement and for the building of collaboratories.

Well, Catherine Gates is going to explain today. Catherine, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Catherine Gates: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be with you guys again.

Jim: Catherine, three years ago, you became the executive director for Women in the Marketplace out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Why did you take that job?

Catherine Gates: You know, I have to tell you guys, I loved working for Work Matters, which is where I was before that opportunity came up. I loved being part of the team. I loved the collaboration that we experienced on the team. But God put a tremendous burden on my heart for working women. I just kept hearing from women the need that they felt for community with other Christian working women who cared about people. integrating their faith at work.

And he even led me, the Holy Spirit led me to write a book for Christian working women, the Confidence Cornerstone, A Woman's Guide to Fearless Leadership, which was published in November of 2020. So as much as I had hoped to serve working women through Work Matters, God closed that door and opened the door with Women in the Marketplace.

And so I took that job because I saw the need. I felt God put that burden on my heart to participate in meeting that need. And so I went for it as, as a step of obedience.

Martha: You know, and there's so much that we've already covered actually, and what God did during that time in past interviews that we've done together with you, Catherine, but in July of 2023, another change happened.

And that was where Women in the Marketplace merged with the Polished network. Why did that happen?

Catherine Gates: We got introduced to Polished really almost right after I joined Women in the Marketplace, and I was able to, having worked with the Work Matters Conference, help them with their very first Boldly conference, just sharing connections, ideas, resources to help them make that more successful.

And so that was us actually collaborating with them on Boldly 2022. I mean, like really getting into the project together fully. I was on the team helping recruit speakers and, and just manage the speakers. When we would meet you wouldn't know that there were people from two different organizations in the Zoom room.

You know, we, it really looked like we all worked as one. And so it was so successful. That conference went so well and we really enjoyed the work that we did together. So Kathy Book, the founder of Women in the Marketplace, you know, she was never in it to build a big organization. She's always been collaborative and she just really wanted to serve the needs of working women.

She really felt the Holy Spirit led her to pursue the idea of merging the two organizations into one. Since we both have a heart for collaboration, I was all on board. And and then we brought Tracy Matthews in from Attune to bring the two leadership from the two organizations together to really pray through that and seek the Holy Spirit, seek God's guidance.

And I'll tell you what, we didn't all go in with the same ideas of what would come of it, but through that prayer session and really, really truly seeking God, we all came away from it saying, you know what? This is what God wants and so, so that's why we went for it, you know, because we do believe that when we work together, we are better.

Jim: Now for the listeners that can't see my face, sarcasm noted coming up here quick. So you're no longer the executive director. You were executive director of Women in the Marketplace and now you're the vice president of business partnerships. Many would say you were nuts to give up the title and prestige of an executive directorship in the name of collaboration. What would you say to them?

Catherine Gates: I don't care about a title. I care about being obedient and meeting the needs of working women. And if that means I'm working for another executive director, which by the way, Amy Cedrone, I couldn't find a better person to work for and with. She's wonderful and amazing and it's just the best experience.

But I would say that not only are we able to meet the needs of working women better together but I just love being part of the team. I love being able to see everybody thrive in their gifts. I actually love not having to wear a whole bunch of different hats and be able to focus on being strategic about building business partnerships and helping grow leadership in women.

Martha: That's so exciting to hear that you honestly believe that, that it's not about the title. It's about what you're able to accomplish. And you know, that is what we want our listeners to hear because it's about the heart and the heart of the matter. And it's funny that we're talking about laying down titles because that's so countercultural. You know, our culture is all about what's next and the higher title or whatever.

We recently did something very countercultural, and that was to let go of a company that we had been utilizing for over 20 years. We knew we needed to make a change when we discovered that our cell phone service provider was supporting anti biblical causes with our monthly fees. And so, Patriot Mobile is now our new cellular service provider, and they are the only Christian conservative wireless carrier. So, just think now, a portion of every dollar earned by them goes to organizations that we can actually believe in, and that we align with.

And if you go to PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him , you will find out for yourself about the great service, the fair pricing and the support that they are giving to those that we believe in and even iWork4Him. And there are so many workplace believers that can hear about their workplace mission field because that now would be supporting the very cause that we're promoting every day.

So that's just something that we're really excited about and I just encourage you to check out the show notes and see the links there.

Jim: That's patriot mobile. com forward slash iWork4Him. All right, Catherine now that the merger is completed and Women in the Marketplace and Polished are one, what advantages have you seen coming from the setting aside of yourself for the greater good of other women?

Catherine Gates: For one thing, since we're one organization, we're able to better utilize the talent on the team. So like I said, one, I don't have to wear all the different hats. I can focus on strategic relationships, on helping women grow as leaders, on using the gifts that I have to build relationships. Our, our Polished podcast cast host, Jane Dorman, she had actually put, God put it on her heart to start the God's Word at Work podcast in 2023.

And so now she's transitioning to relaunching the Polished podcast as our host in January 2024. And so we're super excited about being able to use her talents that way, but we've also expanded what we have to offer women. So under one organization, instead of having to go to two separate organizations, we now still have the Polishedchapters where women can, can join in community with other working women.

We've got the Boldly conference, and we also have expanded Bible study resources. And of course we have our leadership development programs, including our, our collaboratories.

Martha: So let's talk about that for a minute. Your collaboratories are something new that has been emerging. So tell us a little bit about that.

Catherine Gates: I'm super excited about the WIM Collaboratories. And right now we're calling them WIM Collaboratories. We may eventually change that name, but it's, it's just sort of a carryover from what we had started launching while we were at Women in the Marketplace, but they are leadership peer groups that are designed for women at any level of leadership.

And so typically these kinds of groups have been available to C suite executives, and they've been predominantly men, even though they are open to women. I've been part of some of those groups, and they're incredibly beneficial. But at the same time, women can gain tremendous benefit. But from being part of a group like that, that's made up of all women.

And so we felt very strongly about having groups for women that were available to women at all levels of leadership, from diverse backgrounds, with diverse experience to grow together and learn from one another.

Jim: When you say Collaboratories, I naturally go to collaboration. Are they really accomplishing collaboration between all the people that are inside these collaboratories? Are you teaching collaboration? What is it?

Catherine Gates: That's good. First of all, I do want to say, as long as we're using the term collaboratory still, I want to give credit where credit is due. Chuck Profit from At Work On Purpose came up with that term and they also have collaboratories that are open ended and ongoing.

Jim: So we now have two words we have to give Chuck Profit credit for? Biznistry and collaboratories? In the Webster's, does it say, and Chuck Profit made up these words? I mean, I know biznistry is his word, but collaboratories? All right, Chuck, way to go, buddy.

Catherine Gates: Yeah. Yeah. So, so actually you know, we're really created to grow in community. And so, yes, this is a great opportunity for women to collaborate in their growth. You know, all the leadership development that we've created, it's a 12 month program for up to 12 women, is based on the stories of Jesus in the gospels. And so that's one way they're collaborating is through their growth and sharing.

What they're seeing, what they're learning and kind of wrestling with the questions and challenges with one another, but also there's a mastermind component where each woman has an opportunity to present a business problem or a goal or challenge that she's facing and presented to the group and and then just get questions from the group so she can kind of dive into things that she may be making assumptions about or hasn't thought about and then hear their experience related to what she's wrestling with.

And so they are collaborating in terms of just working through those problems and challenges and goals, but also they're encouraged to meet with one another in between the monthly sessions.

Martha: And we'll put the link in the show notes, Catherine, but you have a new collaboratory starting up pretty soon, which is just something I want our listeners to know, because this is not like this mystery secret that you know, we don't really want to tell them how to get. We want them to know how to get involved and to take that next step. So, just quickly address that.

Catherine Gates: That's right. We have three different collaboratories happening in three different cities in person. We're about to launch an online collaboratory starting Tuesday, April 9th, so people can join from any part of the country. I'm actually going to be talking to a woman from England later this week about her interest in it.

So, any part of the world. But yes, it'll be monthly meetings and it will be online and we will, my co co leader and I, are thinking about ways to really make this a unique experience because it is online, to take advantage of really building those relationships.

Jim: So is there a link that we could tell people that how they will find out more about the collaboratories from Polished Network?

Catherine Gates: polishednetwork.org/collaboratories and there'll be one box there that says online collaboratories. That's probably the one you want to click on, although there will be others starting both online and in different cities. We're also very interested in talking to people who are interested in facilitating in their city.

Jim: So you've got openings in, so you're right now, you said in three cities. So there's still 19, 577 cities still left open for Polished Network to open a collaboratory.

Martha: I bet you could even have more than one collaboratory in a city, too. Well, some cities are bigger than others. Yes. But, you know, I just love your heart of all of that, Catherine, that at Polished Network, there's no limit to what God can do and the resources that you can make available for women.

And because of where we're at in life right now, virtual is an amazing option for people that just don't have that other option in person right now for one reason or another. So as long as we're talking about events and things on your website, give us a quick little blurb about the Boldly Conference for this year.

Catherine Gates: Yes. The fourth annual Boldly Conferences. It's Friday, October 18th in Dallas, Texas, actually, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, just outside of Dallas. We are so excited. Our theme this year Is Boldly unified. So very appropriate to the opening scripture. And, very, very needed. And so we really are looking forward to bringing that theme to life, both in the conference experience and through our speakers that include Kat Armstrong, Sharon Hody Miller. Nikki Lawrence, president of e commerce at Black & Decker, Jenny Catron, CEO of Foresight Group, Meredith King from Integrus, Lisa Nichols, CEO of Technology Partners, and more. So yeah, we are, we are busy building out that roster, getting ready to announce the speakers. So you can learn more at Boldlyconference. com. Again, it's Friday, October 18th.

Jim: All right, before we end this segment, and we're going to talk more in the next segment, more about what unity and collaboration may or may not look like. When a woman, a Christian working woman, gets involved in the Polished Network, whether she gets involved in a collaboratory or not, their lives are impacted.

Do you have any life impact stories you could share with our audience today?

Catherine Gates: Oh, I'll tell you. I mean with the chapters, there are women who have said, you know, that they felt so isolated before they found their Polished chapter and they finally found a community of women who they felt they could really connect with to encourage one another and certainly learn from the speakers about what it even looks like to lean on Jesus.

Just it's just been so encouraging to see how much people are finding those, those relationships that they've been so hungry for in the collaboratories, the very first sessions of all the three collaboratories that just started back in the fall. All the facilitators were blown away by how vulnerable and open the women were with all these women that they're meeting for the first time.

And I think that does speak for the fact that we do create a safe environment. But I think it also speaks to the fact that women are so hungry for that kind of connection with other working women that they feel that they can be authentic and real with. And so that's, that's really what we hear a lot from, from people who are involved with Polished.

Jim: You know, I love the fact that you've got so many things on the horizon. You've got this online collaboratory for the Polished Network. You've got the Boldly conference, which Martha and you have gone together so many times, and it's been such a great opportunity for Martha. I love it. I'm frankly just a little jealous, but you know, guys are not allowed.

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Martha: So Catherine, you are a gatherer of people. What other kinds of collaboration are you working on today with the Faith and Work movement?

Catherine Gates: Martha, I'm so excited. I had this idea, you know, shortly after we announced the merger, we had a couple of organizations reach out to us and say, Hey, we need to talk. And I've just wanted so much to get the leaders of some of these organizations together in a room to share our goals, to share our dreams, to, to just explore and brainstorm how we might be able to support each other and maybe even work together.

And so there's a gathering of women coming together in March in Dallas from 15 different organizations, about 21 leaders, where we will be doing exactly that. And our goal as the host is one, we're going to participate too. We're bringing in a facilitator, but our goal is that all of these leaders of these women's faith and work organizations feel comfortable to phone anybody up that they meet over that weekend to contact them for encouragement, for prayer, to brainstorm, to explore a possible collaboration.

And we certainly hope to generate some innovative ideas for how we can collectively increase our impact for working women in God's kingdom.

Jim: Good. Did you have a follow up?

Martha: No, go ahead.

Jim: You sure?

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: Okay. All right.

Martha: We're not going to arm wrestle.

Jim: So, I mean, I love that. I think it's fantastic. And I know that these meetings you've had in the past with gathering people together from multiple organizations have led to really incredible relationships between organizations that you've already been facilitating, Catherine, and we love that.

So here's my question, and I want to get just a little, it's maybe just get a little not edgy, but just maybe a little sandpaper to the audience and really any ministry leaders that are listening today. Do you really think, Catherine, that most Christ followers understand and know what Jesus was talking about in John 17:20-23 about unity and walking in unity?

Catherine Gates: I'm afraid, Jim , that we're not really thinking about those scriptures. We're not thinking about that prayer. It's, you know, sometimes I think we read those verses and we just think it's over there, like that somehow God's going to magically make it happen, but we need to participate. And so I think we really need to meditate on those verses.

I, you know, unfortunately there is just among Christians, so much division and we need to be demonstrating unity just as Jesus said so that people know that he is the one who has sent us so, so people know who he is. And so my prayer is that people would take time to study those verses that we could put our differences aside.

We're never going to agree on everything, we're just not, but can we put those differences aside and focus on the main thing? And that is to help more people see Jesus, to see his light, to know him, to see that we are truly loving God and loving people through the way we live our lives and the way we do our work and the way we want to bring glory to God.

Martha: You know, I just had this revelation while you were saying that, that so many people are so eager to see prophecies in Scripture get fulfilled because they're like, okay, the end is closer after this prophecy is fulfilled, and this prophecy is fulfilled. It says in that Scripture, the world will know that I and the Father are one when the believers come together in unity.

That's my, my own translation of it. But I mean, it's really a prophecy that we're not even talking about. It's like, if you really want the world to see the truth, then we need to be in unity.

Catherine Gates: I mean, and we need to participate. You know, God created us to partner with him. He wants us to work alongside Him. It's not, you know, I've been reflecting a lot on, on the whole, you know, with God all things are possible. You know, it's with God, us partnering with Him. It's not Him just making all these things happen. He wants us to participate. And so we really need to look at that and pray about, God, what is, what is my part in this?

Martha: You know, and we can put a link to the show in the show notes for this, but our first show of the season this year, we talked about that very thing for 2024. It's I work with him, but the him is God, but you know, so I work with him because our mantra is iWork4Him because you know, that is, that is the heart.

But what our actions is not Oh God, I'm going to do this and you can bless it. Or God, you can come along for the ride because I'm doing this thing. We're working together with him for his good. And so I love the word with, and for a lot of people, they wouldn't understand that as a word of the year, but that, that's where our heart is: with.

We should have a poster outside. With. I bet you it would get a lot of questions.

Jim: Yeah, I bet. I guarantee in this small town it definitely would. Catherine, for Christian working women everywhere, why should they get involved in the Polished Network right now?

Catherine Gates: I see so many women who are hungry, who feel isolated, and who are looking, where can I find community?

And so, this is the reason to get involved with the Polished Network, because we can provide that community. We provide all the support if they don't have a Polished chapter in their city, we provide, in fact, we're about to create some training so that people feel comfortable even starting a small group Bible study in their workplace and so you, you don't have to figure it out alone.

We have it. Lots of resources and lots of connections. Even, you know, I've had women come to me from different cities and I've been able to point them to organizations that are local to them. And so not only will they find resources at Polished, but we can also point them to things that we may not provide or people in their cities that we're connected to.

And so don't do this alone. Don't remain isolated. Find community because that is where the growth will happen and you will find life, in that community that's Christ centered.

Jim: Amen. And really, let me just clarify what you're saying because I really feel like you're saying, you said don't do it alone.

You don't have to be alone living out your faith at work as a Christian working woman. There are groups that can be connected, that you can be connected with, but you're saying maybe you've, there's people listening to that, like I want to start something like this in my town. You don't need to reproduce the wheel.

We've already got everything for you at the Polished Network. Just call us and we'll help get you set up. You don't need to figure it out. We've already got it figured out. You just need to say, okay, God. Isn't that what you're saying, Catherine?

Catherine Gates: That's it. You got it, Jim.

Jim: Good. That was free. Right there. Okay. It was all free. That's right.

Catherine Gates with the Polished Network online at polishnetwork. org. Check out the collaboratories. Check out the Boldly conference coming up. Boldlyconference. Is that dot com or dot org? Dot com. Dot com. That's coming up in October on the 18th in Dallas. Make sure you check it out if you're a Christian working woman, you've got to be there.

Catherine, thanks for being here today.

Catherine Gates: Thank you so much for having me.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him!