10/23/24 - 2065: On the Road to Kingdom Advancement

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: I know a lot of people all over the country and a few around the world, but I don't know many truckers. I've traveled millions of miles on a highway alongside hundreds of people, thousands of truckers and trucks. I've shared rest areas with trucks and truckers and a ton of truck stops too, but I've never met anyone in any of those places like John Cummings. John loves his business. He's good at it, but he loves Jesus now too.

All that combines to make one heck of a good story. So let's head off to Romulus. No, not the planet, but the city of Michigan outside of Detroit. John Cummings, welcome to iWork4Him. .

John Cummings: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jim: All right. So John, how did you come to be a follower of Jesus?

John Cummings: I believe that - it was just always talked about my house, always believers, but my parents did not take us to church. I don't recall my parents ever taking me to church, but it was always talked about. My aunt is probably the main one that put the seed in me about it more. She would come over once a while and take myself and my brother and my sister to church every once in a while. And they would send us on a bus on Wednesday nights to a Baptist church.

And I think that was just so they could have some alone time once a week, without the kids. Still, they say it never falls on deaf ears, right? God's word. So even though I don't recall those, it's still something that obviously did some kind of seed in me. But I did not follow through my teen years, my 20s, and maybe in my 30s.

When, my kids were certain, I had a couple at that time and I wanted to do right and good for them, even though I still didn't do much with that. We would go to church a couple of times , four or five times a year. If it was convenient, and I didn't, wasn't up late the night before, had sports on Sunday with the kids or whatever. Again, maybe Easter and Christmas and maybe a couple other times throughout the year, but that was about it. But I always did believe I just did not walk. I definitely did not walk with Him.

Jim: But what shifted your life to where you are today? What was the event that said, I'm going all in for Jesus?

John Cummings: A lot of people, it's funny, when you hear people's stories, some people are hit with lightning and they flip like right away. But I always tell people like my journey has been like baby steps and it's been a slow crawl for me. For the past 7 years I'd say it's been on a very fast track, when I went to a Men's Gathering through my church, it's called Man Up, and there's seven, eight hundred men that go to this retreat, and it was a thing where men are very to their selves, they don't like to share like women do with each other about what they're going through, we're pretty tight knit about what's going on behind closed doors.

And it was a very overwhelming experience of just opening up. I never experienced that about what their struggles were and what things that they were going through in life. And then there was a couple of guys on the Sunday morning when they were wrapping things up, and there's two guys that spoke about human trafficking and the first one does a underground thing where they set up phony websites and men, when men try to get a date, they let them know it's not exactly what they think it is.

And then there was the other gentleman Ramesh from Nepal who runs and started an organization called Our Daughters in Nepal. And he was speaking about how 35 to 40, 000 girls would, be taken across the country from Nepal to India to be sold, whether it was a two day trip or a two week trip. And by the time that they got in India, that they're usually raped over and over again on the journey. So there was something that really hit me with that, and your first instinct is to go vigilante and start taking some people out or at least someone like it. But you realize talking to people that there's just, there's 10 traffickers waiting to take that person's place.

So it's about educating men about what we're doing and how we're maybe sometimes consciously, but most of the time, unconsciously supporting that whole world, whether you're going to a topless bar or whether you're buying magazines or whether you're watching porn - it's all contributing to this world. Second biggest crime in the world behind drugs. It's rapidly catching drugs, so it's, you can sell a body over and over again. When you sell a drug, you gotta get new drugs to sell.

But that journey going up to it, when I was trying to find a church in my local area, and I visited several, and I just wasn't feeling what I wanted to feel. Even though I drove by this church every day to go to work, cause it was big. I thought I wanted to find a little church. And when I finally went there and found out what they were doing and locally, nationally and internationally. I just, I fell in love with the church and then they're talking about you want to grow your faith, join a small group.

This is just Sundays here. It's not about just Sundays. It's about living, the rest of your life through it. And again, I was small baby steps, right? So I had listened to that message they tell almost every week for a year before I finally joined a small group. And then I was getting so much out of that right away that I joined this Man Up Weekend.

Martha: Awesome.

John Cummings: And then I, it just flipped, it flipped my script really quick. Like I went to a trip to Israel with the church the following March. I went, I got involved in three or four things in human trafficking instantly. So that's what really flipped it.

Martha: So we're going to talk about the company that you founded, which is ASAP Transfer, and you founded that in 1995.

But I want to hear then like, you went to this Man Up, you learned some things that really opened your eyes and really changed your heart. How did that change your business and your business plan? What did you bring back to it?

John Cummings: After the economic crash in 08, 09 and, I actually went through- that caused my, the biggest part of my marriage failing because I wasn't making the money and whatever that someone was used to having luxuries to. And after probably like 2012, I started making a little bit of money again and then I started doing really well again.

And it's funny when you ask an honest question to God or tell something honest to God, like he will, he comes in a big way, right? And I remember saying this to him that I know I'm not making more money just so that I can have stuff. What do you want me to do here? And then that's when all these other things start rolling in my way. And just start doing a little bit tithing the way that I was supposed to tithe. That was the first thing that that, that came from that. I started tithing the way that I was supposed to tithe.

And then my business was growing. And there was just all kinds of other things that fell into place with finding the church, and I just I came to a point where I couldn't outgive God, right? Like I, the more I was giving, the more I was getting. And I was really, truly experiencing that, that whole scenario about, giving and getting more than I could ever give.

So it was like, it was a fascinating feeling to me. I did a true thing of learning how good it feels to give is a unbelievable gift to accept from God, to know how good that feels. And it's not about yourself, right? Even though I still get in the way sometimes, I still do those things,.

Jim: Yeah, we all do that. But that was your life transformation, but then you brought that life transformation into ASAP Transfer. How did that happen? Obviously, a lot of those people that have been working for you up to seven years ago, which would have been 2017, some of them probably have been there a longer, so they knew the old John and now there's the new John, this new John, Jesus freak John, they probably called you. How did you bring your faith to work and how was that initially received and how is it received today?

John Cummings: When we, I think it's been three years now that we actually, we've been talking about it and things, but we actually made a decision three years ago, probably about this time, we actually started talking about how we wrote our bylaws and things and tied in our core values. So when we were going through that process and we got to some of the reading from other companies, but we've just modified it to ourselves.

And then, as we were going through the process though, and people were going, Hey, there's a lot of people that may end up quitting because of this and I said, that's okay. There'll be other people that will want to come to us because of it. And then there's a lot of companies that may not want to do business with you because of it. And I said, that's okay too. Cause other businesses want to do something with us.

But I said, if you pay attention, do you think everybody that's in a Chick fil A line believes in Jesus? No, that's a big, long line. I don't think all of them think that they're believing in Jesus. They love the product. So I wasn't, I was never ever concerned about who I was going to lose as a employee or what business I was going to lose. Never, ever concerned me. And we've been able to get involved in a lot of different things with charity, but we were doing things like donating $ 1 a shipment that goes to, different human trafficking organizations and things like that.

And I'm actually on the board for Hope Against Trafficking. That is a safe house for formerly trafficked women, which we are actually in the process of doing a documentary with that. So that's going to be on Prime and Netflix, that should come out the end of January, early February.

Jim: So many people think it's impossible to follow Jesus in their work, but we just heard from John how God opens doors to allow that to happen.

You could take some important steps today to follow Jesus in your work. The iWork4Him Nation covenant is a simple tool that helps give you daily guidance. Go to iWork4Him. com forward slash join the nation and learn more.

Martha: You know, So, Joh, you were just talking a little bit earlier about your core values and one of your core values at ASAP is we provide the opportunity for all to know God and make Him known. Do you want me to read all of that? No, go ahead. Okay, so all that we do centers around Him. We will not force anyone to believe, but they will certainly have opportunities to hear. We treat each person with the highest level of respect and value each person's unique perspective and contribution.

So how do your customers respond to this?

John Cummings: We do point out that to read it, if they want to read it and some of them respond in a great way. There's actually, we've got customers for it, because of it. And I've never had anybody say what are you guys doing? We just can't support you. We don't want to give you the business because I've never had that happen one time.

And when we talk to other customers, it's how I met you guys is trying to get Christian companies to do business with other Christian companies. It's never been a negative thing at all. So as many companies that I've met that we're talking to about doing it, they say a lot of our community or customers are Muslim or they're Jewish and I don't want to chase them away.

And a lot of my friends. I says they're your friends. Are they going away because you're a Jesus follower? Because no, why do you think you're gonna lose their business because of it? And anyone that I've ever that's ever made the move or had the boldness to make the move with the courage to make the move, no one has lost business. And I've never heard anybody other than gain a lot of business out of it.

Jim: So do you consider yourselves a trucking company or logistics company? Which one do you really consider yourself?

John Cummings: Both. We're doing a big logistics project right now for a marathon refinery here in Detroit. It's huge. It's the biggest turnover ever. And we've done it for a couple of the other refineries in the country in Canton, Ohio and Robinson, Illinois. But we also provide trucking.

So logistics solutions and how we can do things better within our companies, but we also provide the trucking. So we are a logistics, but we're also an asset based company as well. We do have trucks on the road.

Jim: So do you find that your faith in Jesus is well received within the trucking and logistics world?

John Cummings: I don't know if it's well received, but I do think that there's really legitimate interest and how that's working and how that's going for you to do something like that. And like it says in the core values, first of all, the beauty of it is, we can't force anybody to follow Jesus, right?

It's gotta be their choice, right? It's called free will, right? There's no reason to say that you're gonna force it on anybody because you can't do that. Cause if we could do one thing as Christ followers is go around waving a wand on people to find that love of Jesus, the whole world would be blessed with it, right?

 It's never so much about what you're saying, but the people do watch what you're doing. Like at one point Hey, what's the one, one thing that you might give yourself credit for? And then for a second, you might say courage, and then you realize , he's the one that gave me the courage. So it goes back to, I get credit for nothing.

Martha: It's clear that God has challenged you, John, to live out your values in your work and by using your profits for his kingdom work. And, I often wonder how it would be for each of us to do this more confidently.

We have a great example in Patriot Mobile. They saw a need that we all have, which is cellular service, and decided to create a company that can provide that service while upholding their values, much like you're doing, John.

So Patriot Mobile is an easy switch with U. S. based support and all the major networks that you currently use. Contact them today at Patriot mobile. com forward slash iWork4Him and use your dollars to support what you believe in.

John Cummings: Yeah, we actually met those people at the Orlando show with you guys, right? So we did reach out to them . There hasn't been a follow up with them though, so I will have to get to do the follow up with them. Because them and Red Balloon as well, right? When you're hiring, when you're doing hiring and you want people to follow the core values because they're saying how many Christian organizations are getting sued for saying that we believe in Christ.

And there's actually, they actually brought it up that I think it was one of the huge, I won't mention the name, but a huge recruitment company that actually, because somebody said that they believe in Christ and the American way or whatever, that they would not recruit for them, unless they took that down. There was a construction company in Texas, I believe, that was his example.

Martha: And that's one of the things we love doing at iWork4Him, is sharing with people those resources that can help them to live out their values in the business that God has called them to do and not to separate that. And so that's the conversation that we love to have.

Jim: John, there's a ton of independent and contracted truckers out there listening to this podcast and trying to connect their faith in Jesus to their work, all the while dodging stupid drivers while trying to make a buck. Any words of advice to maybe over the road truckers, or even local delivery truckers, or just in the state truckers who are going Hey I want my faith to come out on what I do? But they're constantly on the defensive, because I've traveled those roads, millions of miles. I've seen them having to dodge people all the time. Any words of advice to the truckers and logistics people out there?

John Cummings: One of the things that I think in the conversations we were having, redoing our core values and everything was like, every industry has this problem, how to separate their self from their competition. So why? And plus you have way more fun in life, you have way more connection to be true to who you are, and you get people around you to share in the same things, and you have what you go through in life to share that is way beyond any reward that you can imagine, right?

So when you're doing that and I've had, I think at least three or four companies that did make, where they changed their core values and let everybody know that they're a Christian organization, that's a huge reward. And however, God spreads that and lights that on fire to spread around. It's a pretty cool thought to think that you're just reused for something like that.

Martha: I just think of Jim, all of the road over the road traveling that we have done and the people that we have interacted with, and each one of us, no matter where we are, can make an impact on the people that we're just rubbing shoulders with, or even just passing in a hallway.

Jim: A hallway in a rest area, somewhere in the middle of the night in Texas. .

John Cummings: It's fun, ain't it?

Martha: For sure. I want to switch gears just a little bit, John. Tell us about your monthly Christian Network Movement events. What is that all about?

John Cummings: When it was somebody that said, that there's N Times that the Muslim dollar will go back into their community before it goes outwards. And I think we heard something like seven, eight times within the Jewish community. Like they give within themselves before it goes outwards. And with Christians, there was like one and a half. It was like, that was crazy to me. So it was just something that I know that God put on my heart was like what do we do?

So we just started reaching out to a couple of people and Mr. Salazar, Dan talking to him and he started introducing me to people and we started doing these monthly Tuesday events. And he said what do you expect to get out of this, John? I said, honestly, I have no idea. I just I feel like God put it on my heart to just start, take a baby step.

I have nothing to do with it. He's the one that runs with it. He's the one that put people like you into our lives and all these different organizations like Krystal and kingdom commerce. And now we're starting to Michigan Christian commerce in this state. And actually, my pastor 's moving from this side of the state to the other side of the state, so we're talking to him about opening one up and it's just watch him go, man. Look at him go.

Martha: Awesome.

Jim: That's good to know. Who should be attending these events? Because I know you send out monthly invites. Who are you looking to attend the events?

John Cummings: Anybody that wants to be part of giving the money that you make to other companies that want to give back to the kingdom. I want any vendor that I can - it's got to make good business sense, right? It's got to be a good business. a good business sense for us. But if I have a choice between giving it to anybody else and someone who's giving back to the kingdom, that's just a no brainer.

I want to do that. And I think when the conversation, sometimes these Christian organizations are still a little bit leery to say could you use us for what we do? I want to do that. I want to give my business to other Christian organizations. And I'm not worried about when or how it's going to come back. I know that I'm just being faithful to the process, that will come back.

Martha: I want to talk about this just for a minute because a lot of people really struggle with this concept as a believer which make you know, it's just that division that we have in our head where this is supposed to be a separate conversation but the reality of this is if we don't vet the people that we are interacting with and using as vendors and helping to grow their business through our business, we could be supporting very different agendas than what our values are, and that's the key right there, is that you're helping to make a company more successful so that they can give money and support the things that their values believe in.

And if those don't align, you could be helping to support the very thing that you're fighting against it on the other side. So you were talking about your heart towards helping with people that have been trafficked and, just the terrible industry that is happening with women and children all over the world.

And if you are using as one of your biggest vendors somebody who helps make that industry grow, that makes no sense. And so we really need to think about that. And so there's nothing wrong -. In fact, there's everything right about helping to support and help grow other businesses that have the same values as you.

So just want to encourage our listeners to really think about that and pray about that, about what vendors are you using? What do they support? Because we know companies are using their profits to do something. And what are they, what is their end game? And it really does matter. And our dollars vote our values.

That's my little soapbox for the day. But a lot of people, there's tension around that conversation. And you're saying, nope, this matters. I want to help other people. Let's keep the kingdom dollars growing so that we can do what our Bible tells us to do. So good job for you. I love that's happening there in your area. Do you have any final words for our listeners before we end today?

John Cummings: I just told everybody when I, cause I'm very vocal, I'm very, I'm not afraid to share what I feel and everything, and they said you know what ? The only person that's winning, even like in the trafficking world, by ignoring something that's going on next door about something like that, that doesn't feel right, the only person that's winning by you being silent is the enemy.

Martha: Amen.

John Cummings: The devil's winning when we're doing that. We have to have the courage to step out and say something don't look right. Something don't feel right. And let's help each other out. And it's not hard, not that hard to do it.

Jim: John Cummings with ASAP Transfer out of Romulus, Michigan. Thanks for being on iWork4Him today.. Thanks for sharing a little of your story. John, if they want to get involved in the Christian Network Movement monthly events, how can they do that?

John Cummings: If you send an email to lions. den@ASAPexpressinc.com or you can start off by emailing myself, john.Cummings@ASAPexpressinc.com.

Yeah, I'd love for anybody. This is pretty cool watching God work. It's all him. He is the one that's giving the word to wherever he wants to get the word to and letting it spread.

Martha: Awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes for everybody that needs to get a chance to get something to write that down and make that email contact with John.

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