3/20/24 - 2034: Putting Theory into Practice

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: Sometimes God moves you down the street and sometimes he moves you across town and sometimes he moves you to another state. Imagine if the Lord said, leave England and move to Redding, California, and then leave Redding, California and move to Austin, Texas. 

You may ask why? But if he's really your Lord, you would just say yes and be along for an adventure. Our guest today did just that. And she found out that God was lining up training and preparation for the mission field of using spiritual gifts to impact business. This is Lisa van den Berg story, and she's here to fill in all the blanks. Lisa, welcome to iWork4Him.  

Lisa van den Berg: Jim and Martha, so good to be here. Thank you for all that you guys do to encourage us.  

Martha: Oh it is our pleasure, and it's really our pleasure when we get to dig in and hear a little bit about our guest's Jesus story to start off the show. So give us a little take of what Jesus, how he has intersected your life. 

Lisa van den Berg: I never wanted to be a Christian. I grew up in South Africa, and all that I ever saw of the Christian world was that you couldn't be ambitious. You couldn't want to help a lot of people unless it was just serving in the lowest positions is all I saw. And so I was like, no, I don't want anything to do with Christianity because I'm ambitious. 

I want to affect a lot of people's lives. I've got things to build and things to do. And so the two just never met in my mind. And, as Jesus so beautifully does, and as I've learned over the last 21 years of being a Christian, He makes all of us unique, and He'll meet us in those ways. So one day we had moved to England from South Africa, and there was a park across the road, and a huge banner that said, God in the Park. 

And my mom in law was visiting and wanted to go. So I said to her, fine, I'll take you. I was 31 at the time throwing a teenage tantrum because I didn't want to go anywhere near this God thing. We walked across the park. I heard this amazing music and I looked at her and I said that can't be church because I've never heard music that good coming out of church, right? 

And just as God does, the couple that happened to be preaching that night were ambitious, had achieved a lot, were doing great things for the kingdom. All the things I thought Christianity wouldn't let me do. And so that night, I think it was a Tuesday night, I gave my life to the Lord on a Tuesday and found out that I'd been pursuing Him all this time, but actually He'd really been pursuing me. 

And He found me that night. And I said, yes. And it was Tuesday. I was volunteering on the Thursday, in church on the Sunday. And I haven't left.  

Martha: Such an amazing story.  

Jim: So then God moved you from England to California, which I don't know. That's a long way. 9, 000 miles. Why? How and why did God move you from England to Redding, California? 

Lisa van den Berg: I was, my husband and I were hungry to take what we learned about in our beautiful church in England but a lot of it was theory. There was some practical that the normal good works and things like that. But we were hungry to really see the fullness of what Jesus means in John 10:10. What does it mean to live this abundant life? 

And I remember asking early in my journey with the Lord, I said, look, I want to know how to take what we hear on a Sunday morning and practically put feet on that. How do I use that on a Monday morning when real life is happening? How do I take a verse and go? How do I apply it when I don't have enough money for rent or this person's really irritating me and I just want to box them, but I'm supposed to be nice to them. The real stuff that happens. I'm worried about my child and my marriage is falling apart. And so I've been on a journey with the Lord for the longest time of how do we practically live out the theory that we hear in church? 

And so we had heard of this church in Redding, California, and my husband and I just said, you know what, Lord, you send us wherever you want to go. We knew we needed to go somewhere to study. Our daughter had left home by this time, so we're empty nesters. And so I just said to me, you know what, wherever my husband says we'll go and study, that's where we'll go. 

We landed on this church, Bethel Church in Redding, California. And one of the things that really attracted us was this mix of you could learn theory in the morning and then go out and practically do it in the afternoon. And that time transformed our personal lives with the Lord as well as our lives as a couple and helped us to really start walking out what we believed. 

Jim: You, in fact, got involved in the Heaven in Business curriculum there at Bethel, right? Tell us about that a little. We covered Heaven in Business years ago and it's a phenomenal study. Talk, talk to us about what did you learn in Heaven in Business?  

Lisa van den Berg: In the UK at the time business people were being sued for wearing the cross to work or perhaps taking their Bible in with them. And I got so frustrated and, God often uses those frustrating periods to birth something in us. And I said to him, Lord, I know that you are the answer and I love business, but at the moment they don't seem to be able to meet. I can't go to any of my business friends and say, Hey, but what could it look like to partner with Jesus at work? 

Because I might get sued, right? And so we actually went across to Redding with this frustration in my heart, I'm like, Lord, there has to be a way, there has to be, if we're not allowed to wear a cross to work and we're not allowed to take a Bible, the only ways I knew to talk to people about Jesus at the time were to do those things, right? 

And you had to pray, in Jesus name, Amen, at the end, otherwise it didn't work, right? I had all of these things that these are the only ways you can evangelize or do things at work. And what I found at Heaven in Business was this, and at the church, at Bethel Church, was this beautiful invitation from God to even more than that. 

What would it look like to be able to pray for healing for somebody because the Lord gave you an insight into what was happening? What would it look like to be able to encourage somebody with a word from God, more than just, Hey, that purple scarf looks great on you today, or you did awesome in that presentation, but actually to be able to partner with God? 

Let him give you something about the person in front of you and say that and it produced miracles that fascinated me. And that's what I discovered - this meeting of the theory and the practice in workplaces and part of the early things that I did at having a business was just help record these literally miracle testimonies in the workplace, hundreds of them. And it fascinated me that we could actually live this way in our business.  

Martha: And I'm going to put a link in there for Heaven in Business, just as one example of the resources that are out there for people, if you're just wanting to know a little bit more. But Lisa, you guys have traveled a lot of miles in your moves. And you even made one more from California to Austin, Texas.  

When I think about it, all of those miles, I think about the fact that Jim and I do a lot of driving for iWork4Him, attending conferences in other cities around the country. And we do all of that in our minivan. And it's so important for us to have good cell service everywhere we go. 

I often am in the backseat of the van working on show outlines or marketing materials while Jim's driving through the mountains or the deserts or the plains, wherever we might be. And we recently switched our cell service to Patriot Mobile, and the good coverage was really mandatory because we needed to make that switch and know that it would be a good one. 

So now, after probably five or six thousand miles where we've been testing it, the coverage is great and we have not been disappointed. So we have great coverage and support, faith, family, and freedom. You can check it out at PatriotMobile.com/iWork4Him and make that switch today yourself. 

Jim: Lisa, God then took you from Redding, California, and in a perfect sense of humor for somebody from South Africa, who's also lived in England, moved you to Austin, Texas. Why? What, why, and, how did God move you to Austin, Texas from Redding, California?  

Lisa van den Berg: My husband and I have been married for 28 years, and one of the things that's come out of our faith journey together, and we were not Christian when we got married, right? It came to us later in our marriage. But one of the things that we always know that we're hearing God is when both of us click with something. So I remember that we were just getting this feeling that it was time to move, right? You get that shifting feeling. And one morning the Lord woke me up with an invitation and He said, Hey, come let's go and sit in the sitting room and let's Google Austin, Texas. 

Now a little bit of the backstory was that when we knew that we were shifting, getting that same shifting feeling from England and we were coming to the US, we investigated Austin, Texas. My husband worked for a big company at the time, and he could actually get an intercompany transfer from England to the US, to Austin, Texas. He'd been here for seven, eight weeks writing a specialty paper in his field so he checked the place out. He knew what it was like. It was very much like South African culture. So we thought that's the place we'll go. And we made all of these plans to do this intra company transfer to Austin. 

God just intervened in all of that and all of the circumstances changed. And he redirected us to Redding, California for seven years. He wakes me up and says, let's go talk about Austin, Texas. And I said, Lord, you have such an amazing sense of humor. You just took us on a seven year diversion to the place we wanted to go in the first place. 

So we sat talking and Googled a bit of information in that. And I said to the Lord, if this is where you're taking us to, please, will you confirm it to my husband separately? I don't want to be the convincing factor here. And that night when we got together to pray before going to bed, my husband just looked at me and said, Hey, What do you think about Austin? 

And then I told them what had happened that morning and I just, all right, thank you, Lord. This is the next place we get to go.  

Martha: Such an amazing amount of background that God, like you said, you took a detour to get to where you thought you were going to go. Why do you think that God did all of that moving in your life? 

Lisa van den Berg: First of all, it's one of the ways he created us. My husband and I love to travel. We love to be in different places. So I always encourage people, go with how God created you to be. But second of all, he knew that, and particularly the diversion, he knew that we needed to see him do things that only he could do. 

It was well within our scope as two individuals to be able to plan an intercontinental move to, to do all of that, plus it's something we like to do, right? So that was all within our own sphere and he needed to take us on a diversion to go: let me show you something that is completely out of your box. Let me show you who you are.  

And I remember standing in worship the one day and I said to God, I was frustrated. Things weren't happening. And I said to him, I need you to do something. God, why isn't it happening? And he said, Lisa, I need you just to show up. And I said Lord, I show up all the time. I'm like the person that puts in the most effort that I know. And he said, but here's the difference, Lisa. If you will show up, which just means giving me your yes, I will show off. Because I am God.  

And that thing blew my mind and I made a commitment that day. I said, Lord, I wanna live the kind of life where I can show up in all that I have, but that you show off in everything so that my life is marked by you and not my own ability to do stuff. 

Martha: Wow. So powerful.  

Jim: So God moves you to Austin, Texas, and into the business of everyday life with Jesus. Talk about what you and your team do today.  

Lisa van den Berg: You see the common theme, right? It's all of this. Lord, how do we move from theory to practice? And I have just always been fascinated with human potential. 

What is it that Jim does that nobody else does? What, what happens when Jim and the Holy Spirit walk into a room? That's different to what happens when Martha and the Holy Spirit walk into a room. Or you talk to people, right? What can it really look like? And Andy Mason from Heaven in Business really helped to unlock this for me. 

What can it look like when we've reached the highest potential that we can as human beings and just in our everyday walk, right? What can it look like to really partner with God and see things that he sees? Just as I mentioned, to be able to get downloads from him about somebody in front of us. And there's a key question I always ask a lot. 

I say, look, how can I love on the person in front of me? Because I am me and I only know a fraction of you, but God knows everything about you. So how do I get to be me and you get to be you and God help us to connect with each other. And so out of that has come this fascination with coaching people. How can we help you to partner, bring all of you and all that the Lord has, and as the two of you do this together to you be the fullest expression of you on the earth? That abundant life really does look like that? That Matthew 5:16, which is our guiding verse in our business, is how do we let your light shine and the word there is let, right? We have to let it happen.  

So that's the first key is how do we say yes to God? Let our light shine, the fullness of what he's put in us coming out. And the verse carries on to say, then men will see your good works, and the result will be that they will glorify God. We love helping people get to that place where whatever blockage is standing in the way, to get that blockage out of the way so that you now want to let God shine. 

Then discovering what your light is. What is your purpose? Who are you created to be? And then helping you to express that. How do your good works naturally bring glory to God? And that is just our lifeblood. We love doing that.  

Jim: It sounds to me like this is working in business with an unfair advantage because you're using the Holy Spirit. Isn't that what you're really doing?  

Lisa van den Berg: But this is the beauty is that this is how the world gets to see who we are, that we love one another, but that they look at us and go, but that's so strange. Other people get angry in that situation. Why don't you? Or other people have been trying to invent that thing, but now you just come along and it happens. 

I remember one story, one short story where a guy was on a coding team and they needed to sort out a computer coding thing in order to give a presentation the next day, and they just could not do it. This guy went home and he said to the Lord, what do we get to do about this? And the Lord said to him, I'm the one that created the zeros and ones in binary code in the first place. I can give you the answer. So he just went for a run. He went to sleep. The Lord woke him up at three o'clock in the morning, gave him a little tiny little phrase. He put into the code, walked into the presentation the next day, and it all went flawless. In that moment, he let his light shine, and the natural result, when men saw the good works, was that God was glorified. 

Because what was the question they came to ask him after. Dude, how did you do that? Thursday, we didn't have that answer. Now, Friday, we're rocking the presentation, and we won the bid, right? That's the beauty of partnering with God.  

Jim: We've experienced that as newlyweds, as I was, I have a programming degree and I would often be stuck. I don't know how to fix this. I don't know. And I'm like, Lord, I need a solution. And I would always get it in my sleep and solve the problem. And that was when we really started to realize that God cared about the intimate details of our lives, even a programming project. It was so much fun.  

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Martha: So Lisa, how are you seeing your spiritual giftings and those of your team being used to transform how the kingdom business is being conducted?  

Lisa van den Berg: One of the beautiful things is that we, what we do for our clients in being able to help them understand who they are, we started with us. 

Lord, what do we bring? And that's why there are three of us together. And there's actually a whole team behind that as well, that we bring in as well. And we sat and we said, Lord, how did you make this one person? How did you make the other person? And how did you make Lisa? And how do we work in combination? Because one coach is great, but different coaches that see things from different angles has just bought a real vibrancy to our business and help our clients, right? 

So one of us has this prophetic gift, this ability to be able to hear from God and go, oh , that's where the blockage is. And he calls them ceilings, chains, and walls. So how to bust through those things. The other person on the team has the ability to then, once the lie has been identified, to say to God, what's the truth instead? What do we really get to believe? And then I have this gift of strategy and clarity that helps you to practically walk that out in your business and in your life.  

And so we just love being able to acknowledge the beauty of each other's giftings and spiritual giftings, and then how they work together, which is a picture of the body of Christ, and bring that fullness to our clients, help them to not only do that for themselves, but then their work team or their family or the people they get to do life with too, because when we appreciate who we are, and that our differences are beautiful and made to work together, Oh, man, that's the picture of love and the Gospel that causes everything to work together. 

Jim: And it just exemplifies that God wants to get involved in our daily lives, especially in our work, because he equipped you and your team with three different kind of giftings, but all of them applicable to how do you run a business successfully and bring glory to God? Give us an example of something that the three of you were sitting down with a business owner and he or she was stuck. And God gave you guys a solution in this business. Give us that story like that.  

Lisa van den Berg: So one of those was a couple. She was mostly the entrepreneur. Her husband had recently come out of long term employment, but they had this vision from God. They knew what they were doing. They said to us, come in and help us do a strategy session down to the tactics for the new year. 

So we went with them for the new year. And so the three of us, we're all sitting in the living room, the three of us are sitting on the sofa and the two of them have this whiteboard and they've put everything on this whiteboard, all their thinking. And so the prophetic gentleman comes and he looks and he says, okay, this is where I see that won't work. This is how, let's put things this first, the second, right? And he started putting things in place. Then the lady that brings in a healing said, okay, but this is where I know you guys and you don't believe that this can happen. So let's ask God for that truth instead. And they did this swapping lies for truth exercise. 

And then I came in with a tactics and said, so this person needs to be on that team. This person needs to be here. Let's do this next, right? And we put steps and strategy steps and tactics in place for the next year. But the beautiful thing was that we never want you to have to come to us for your solutions. 

So we partner with our clients because they have giftings too. And so we're not business consultants. We just come along as a support network around the ones who are called to business. So the beautiful thing is that as we were doing this, it sparked them and it turned into the five of us. It's listening to the Lord and creating a plan for their business, because it's them that will go away and walk it out. 

And then because we love supporting people, we just walked that plan out with them for the next year, right? As check in points, as accountability, as helps along the way. And it was beautiful to see all five ignited and walking out the plan that God has.  

Martha: I can imagine that our listeners right now are like, Oh, I want that. I want that help. And you have a simple resource that can help people to get a little, I don't know, sneak behind the curtain or whatever you want to call it, called Three Simple Ways to Invite Jesus into Your Day. Why don't you tell us about that resource and then I'll put the links in the show notes. 

Lisa van den Berg: Sure. Thank you. We found in the decade that we have been coaching and the years before that, we were doing this voluntarily, that some of the biggest blockages can be, oh, but that's my spiritual life and this is my work life. What the two of you open this podcast with - what does it look like for all of life to be integrated, right? 

And so we find that, when I go to work, this is my Monday to Friday. And we do leadership practices and best world practice and things like it. But then I'll talk to God maybe on the Saturday because I'm leading up to Sunday and then Sunday is our God day. And what we've actually found is that when we break down that separation and we merge all of life together, what it looks like to actually live everyday life with the Lord and go, Lord, these are the meetings on my calendar today. 

What do you think about them? How do I talk to Fred? Because Fred was a little upset with me last time. Or how do I get Jennifer to, to really shine in that thing that she's too shy about, right? And you involve the Lord in your thinking, in your decisions, as you go into the meetings, you let him speak, give him room to be, you let love lead. 

Business, our own personal lives, our interactions, our communications, our businesses flourish because we're doing everyday life with Jesus instead of the separation, right? Because truly, we think we may be the CEO, CFO, whatever our C's are, right? But what if Jesus was our CEO and we got to run the business with him? 

What if he was our CFO, our chief marketing officer, our HR personnel, right? And we let him have a voice in all of those places? Man. There isn't, the sky isn't even the limit, right? The limits are off then.  

Jim: As we talked today with Lisa van den Berg from Everyday Life with Jesus. She also has a podcast, Adventures with Jesus Today podcast. Do you share these stories of success on your Adventures with Jesus Today podcast?  

Lisa van den Berg: Yeah. They are typically just stories of real life scenarios. I get really authentic in those and just say, you know what, this situation happened and this is what it looked like to talk to Jesus. And you know what the encouraging thing is? That it breaks down this, Oh, it's only the people on the platform. It's only the people who, you know, who are in positions who can hear God and interact with God. And it's not true. Every single one of us in our everyday lives can hear God and walk through life with Him. He loves to do that with us.  

Martha: And yes, listeners, if you are wondering right now, Lisa's podcast is on Awaken Podcast Network, our network that we have as a resource, as a curated place where you can go and find podcasts that are really speaking into your lane, where you are either seeking the Lord, where you work in industry, whatever it might be. 

So go check out Awaken Podcast Network and on our website, iWorkforHim. com, you'll see it right on the front page, and you can go and find Lisa's podcast there.  

Jim: Lisa, before we go, any final words of advice to those listening today that are, that they're just learning to trust God with those details in their business? 

Lisa van den Berg: It's easier than you think. Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And it's true. We think we have to put so much effort in. We think we have to study and be good and that we put a lot of emphasis on our own effort. And the truth is that God wants you in relationship with him even more than we do. 

So just take the pressure off yourself. One of the things that I do each morning is the moment I open my eyes, I put my hands up like I imagine my dad is giving me a hug. And I just say, Good morning, Abba. Good morning, Jesus. Good morning, Holy Spirit. Thank you for being with me in my day. And it just takes all the pressure off us and just becomes a relationship that we get to walk through each day with him. 

Jim: Fantastic. You can find out lots more about Lisa van den Berg at everydaylifewithjesus. com. Lisa, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.  

Lisa van den Berg: Yeah, thank you both. Thank you for the encouragement you send around the world. It is truly making such a difference in people's lives.  

Jim: Thank you. 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!