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 we continue on our 2024 series on I Work With Him stories from the workplace, from the workplaces of Jesus followers, we head off today to the southernmost nation of the continent of Africa. Bill Hollis joins us today from Johannesburg, South Africa. Bill and his wife Janet run a marketplace ministry called Ruach Ministries and host a weekly Facebook podcast called The Marketplace, A Kingdom Perspective.

This is released every Monday and it reaches sometimes greater than 70, 000 people. But Bill's story is anything but simple. His story of learning to work with him is more like a roller coaster with rose bushes to ride in. But I'll let Bill tell you his perspective. Bill's perspective on working with God is clear and concise now, and you can benefit from his wisdom without having to figure out on your own how to work with God in your work today. Bill Hollis, welcome to iWork4Him.

Bill Hollis: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful. It's a real privilege to be with you. I always enjoy your shows. Trust tonight is going to be another enjoyable evening.

Jim: Or day, depends on which time zone you're in. Bill, we always start off every show with just sharing about what's your Jesus story.

Bill Hollis: I don't have one of these, what's it, these stories where, you know, somebody has been broken and they've come to Jesus. I actually came to Jesus in the most, one of the best times of my life. I was a director of a company. I had all the frills of a director. I was living a very good life.

I had been divorced. I was dating a wonderful lady who became my wife later on, and I was working with a man who was a born again believer, and his wife was a born again believer. And little did I know, my girlfriend was also a backslidden Christian. So I had this theory in life that the only time - I was 35, by the way - I had this theory in life that the only time you went to church was for funerals and for weddings.

For me, if you mentioned the word church, it means nothing. God is always up to something, and if I look back in my life, He really had His hand on me. Somewhere in this journey, I got hold of this little book. It was called Life After Death. Yeah this secular guy, I start reading this book.

And it's all about people who died and had this near death that left their bodies either in accidents or operating theaters and left their bodies. And they all had the similar experience that this book was about 500 people they interviewed all over the world. And they all had a very simple experience. They all left their bodies, could see what was going on. They went into this tunnel of light and their whole life came before them. And then they came back and they saw themselves over there, wherever they were, and they got back into their bodies. I realized, man, there's more to life than just what we see.

We see life as just, through the normal eyes and we think life is like that, but there's a spiritual life that we are not aware of. And I think that's the greatest deception the enemy has, that he confuses people or deceives people to believe that there's no spiritual realm and there's no enemy and there's no devil. And so that kind of got me around to say there's more to life than just this lovely life I'm having. And so I, at the time I used to be one of these avid water skiers and also my girlfriend, she used to come and visit me. And I used to lie in bed on Sunday morning and she said, I'm going, all of a sudden she decided to go to church.

She was black spaxolin, and now she was going to church. So I used to lie in bed on a Sunday morning, and I'd say you can pray for me. And little did I know that when she was praying for me, in fact, God was at work. So slowly, she invited me to the church, and I went to a church service. It was a random Church service in a town called East London in South Africa.

And I'm not a half a person, I either do something wholeheartedly or I won't do it at all. And so I would go with her to the service and, they'd have an altar call and I think she used to think I wonder when this guy will ever give his life to the Lord. And obviously one day I actually gave my life to the Lord, and my whole world changed.

And I think if, for viewers, when you come to the Lord and you have a realization that the life you're living is not really what we need to be living. And so my whole life changed, and I started to read. She gave me this wonderful Bible, a spiritual filled Bible, and I picked it up and I started reading it from the cover, from the front to the back.

I read every scripture underlined and just was overwhelmed with the wisdom and what I was reading. Had been to Sunday school, sang the song, we love Jesus, I love Jesus, but never actually read the Bible in all these years. So it was like a new experience for me.

And from that day, my boss who was the MD at the time him and his wife were both born again and he used to share with me, so it was a God set up. God got me at 35. My only regret is I wish I'd started earlier.

Jim: Sure. Absolutely.

Martha: I love that you said it was a God setup, and it had to do with your work, and that God already had believers around you for that. So tell us then, on your work side, what led you to becoming a business guy? What was your path there?

Bill Hollis: I started as a young guy. I always wanted to be an engineer so I started at a engineering company and we were building tugs at those days. So I was a trainee engineer and then it closed. And then all of a sudden I was without a job. My father had died, so I needed a job. And so my ex girlfriend, one of my ex girlfriends, her father worked in the clothing industry. And said we're looking for a trainee manager. So I started in the age of about 20 in the clothing industry.

And that's how I got into the clothing industry. And that's how I started. And I had no vision to be a, to own my own business. Never had a vision. My vision was like, I could be a manager and then I was a manager and then I could be a factory manager, then I became a factory manager, then I could be a director. And then I became a director.

And so I progressed and then the one business I was with, they closed. And by chance I got into business of my own. Even that was a supernatural door that God had opened. I had a vision. I wrote down what I had and just trusted the Lord and knocked it with no finances.

I just knocked at every door I could with no surety ship, nothing. And finally the Lord led me. I went to somewhere where they were prepared to give me a substantial loan just based on my history and my ability. And they never asked for any charityship. And that's how I started.

Jim: So let's just ask this question. I've just finished reading your book, which is going to be released later this year, early next year. Were you an instant success?

Bill Hollis: No, not at all.

Jim: Not at all. And that's I wanted to leave it right there before we take a break because you had a lot of learning. It was a lifetime of learning to work with God and that's why we've got Bill Hollis joining us today from South Africa because, you know, it's funny because we've heard so many people say things like after 10 years, it was an instant success. One such company I can think of is Patriot Mobile.

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Martha: That's so true, Jim. I'm so glad you shared all that. Bill, learning to work with God in business is quite a journey. And like Jim said, he got a peek through because he got to pre read your book. And so he knows this journey that what God is taking you through. But what was one of the first lessons that you learned about working with Him?

Bill Hollis: How I got to that, it's also another supernatural. Somebody put a DVD in my hand, and it was a Ed Silva's DVD, and it had a few testimonies of people that had, were working that had started Christ in their business. And at that time, my late wife was, she was in the ministry, and I was just waiting to go. And I had my own business for years, and I was just waiting to go into ministry.

And I'll never forget I got hold of this DVD and that DVD, it opened my eyes to a whole new world that I never knew existed. And that night, I got in front of the TV, I got on my knees and I repented and I said, God, I've been waiting to go into ministry and you've been waiting for me to go into ministry and start where I was. So that was the start of my journey of learning to be a marketplace minister.

When people ask me, who I am, I say I'm a marketplace minister. And God supernaturally connected me with Edsel Bosa and a team with grand power. And I went and felt, it's just a supernatural journey. I got there and I met and connected with him. And then the start of the journey of learning to work with God. And it's a very interesting journey. It's a long journey. Because when we partner with God in a business, then he's got to get the world out of us. And I had a lot of world in me.

 (laugher)

Jim: Let's talk about, let's talk about some of that world. Because again, I've read your 300 page book, so I got a little hint of this world stuff. Let's talk about hiring people. How can we work with God to hire people, the people that he wants us to hire? How do we learn that?

Bill Hollis: One of the things I've learned as we go on, the Bible says, make your request known to God. And the Lord knows everything, we partner with him in the business. And once I shared in the book, I was saying, God, I'm working with you. And then the Lord arrested me one day, said, No, you're not working for me, you're working with me. And so he knows our every need. And so we need to make that need known, Jim. Okay. I write down my, what I need, what stuff we need.

And then we also, we have a prophetic ministry. My wife is a prophet and we have a prophetic team. And so we just trust to send us the right people and God sends the right people for the right thing. I'll tell you a short story, which is not in my book. We had friends of ours and she was hiring staff and the lady didn't pitch up and she was so distraught because she had a company that leased buildings and also was building and she said, this lady led her down.

And I said, I never forget saying to her, just what are you worried about? God can send you somebody from Cape Town. And lo and behold, two months later, she phoned me. She said, buddy, you won't believe it. I said I can believe it. She said a lady applied from Cape town, assistant job, and she's got exactly the qualifications I need. She's done building and she's done letting of property. So God can send us wherever we want, but we need to seek him first. And we need to put that request before him and trust him to lead us to the right person. And they'll come.

Jim: Okay. Did you ever hire the wrong person when you thought you were hearing from God, but maybe hired the wrong person?

Bill Hollis: I once, it's in my book. I had fun. We have fun with it. Janet is a prophetess, so she's traveled internationally. I asked to be on an interview with one lady and I interviewed the lady and thought she was the right person. And then she actually completely bluffed me. And she made out that she was this perfect person. And then I had to try and get rid of her. And it was such a difficult thing. I remember I looking back now, God showed me, sometimes God sends us people that we need to correct. And sometimes God, with that, we need to build up and to encourage, but sometimes God sends us people that He wants to use to correct us.

And the journey started with a lady. I tried to fire her, but her daughter worked for attorneys. And no matter what I did, she came up with some story. I reckon it brought all the demons out of me. Every demon that I had came out because I just, so frustrated I couldn't get rid of her. But finally, she left. And so I learned a lesson that God will sometimes send us people that He wants to use to change us. We always think it's only for our benefit, but many times it's for His benefit.

Martha: It's amazing to hear your story, stories, and I feel bad because we're focusing on some things you had to learn the hard way, but isn't that part of why you probably even write your book, right? To help people, show them what God has taught you. And I know that you have a lesson that you've learned about partnering with a non believer as you were learning to work with God. Tell us a little bit about that.

Bill Hollis: I teach people that we need to understand that partnership in business is like a marriage. Spiritually, it's like a marriage and if you partner with the wrong person, every value that they have on you, everything that they carry will come up on you. And there's also a clash in the spirit. Yes, I had some very good partners, but I also learned one partner, I had everything. I thought everything was going well. He was a Buddhist. We were going to set up this partnership, and it looked, everything looked rosy, and everything looked well.

 But God had another idea. Now, sometimes God protects us from ourselves. I look at my life, and I look back, and I think so many wrong decisions I made, but God and His mercy and His grace always protected me, and He even delivered me from the issues that I faced. And I tried to work with Him, and it just turned out God put a block there.

And eventually, this whole thing fell apart. He accused me of being deceitful and lying and all kinds of things. And I never forget going to his place one day, he was standing at his door with his hand behind his back, and he was screaming at me to get off his property because he had owed me some money, and I need to find out that he had a gun behind his back.

He staffed home, he had a gun behind his back. So we need to know that when we partner with people, they need to have the same values. Okay, and not just get involved with every person that comes along, because that sounds like a good idea, but it's never a God idea.

Jim: Learning to hear God's voice in all of this. I know that's, you had 50 years of really learning to hear God's voice in your work in your book that I mentioned, what's the title of your book and when do you think it'll be released?

Bill Hollis: The title of the book is A Supernatural Journey in the Marketplace: Money, Marketplace, and God. I'm looking to release it by the end of the year, it should be finished. Just trying to get everything together. But people say to me I've got a Christian business. There's a big difference between a Christian business and a kingdom business. And see, in a Christian business, you do business by the book. You don't steal, you don't swear, you don't do all of these things. And that's great. And we compliment you if you're doing, you have a Christian business. But we need a kingdom business because a kingdom business has a king. And his name is Jesus, and we need to be hearing from him, and he's our CEO. There's a book I've got here somewhere in these books is God is my CEO.

We need to know he's the CEO and we partner with him in business. And the thing is, how do you work with somebody that you don't know? How do you work with somebody that you never hear? And so the question is, we need to know when we do a Christian business, that's great, but a kingdom business is supernatural. You'll see supernatural signs, wonders, and miracles. You'll see the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in your business, but it means that you have to learn to hear from Him, because that's a key. You have to be able to hear from the boss, okay, your boss, and say, Lord, please lead me, Holy Spirit, lead me and guide me.

Holy Spirit's the most awesome. He's awesome. He's our teacher. He's our guide. He's our paraclete. He's the one with the power. He will show us. So we need to develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit, to be able to hear from God clearly. And in the early years, I always say, I started journaling, I would just say about 90 percent was me and maybe five, 90, maybe 10 percent was God. But over the years, over many years, it's become more of God and less of me. And so it's a journey.

Life is a journey. That's why I called it a supernatural journey, because life is a journey. And it's a journey listening, learning to listen to God because God can speak to everyone. He's speaking to everybody. It's just, we need to learn how best we hear.

Jim: So the books gonna be called the supernatural journey in the marketplace, a supernatural journey in the marketplace. What I love about Bill's book is the first couple hundred pages is Bill's story and how up and down, trial and error, and learning to work with God. And in the last hundred plus pages, he shares all the wisdom that he has garnered from those experiences in detailed fashion of what does it look like to run a kingdom organization. So it's, I highly recommend it. The stories were fun to read. I felt bad for Bill because he laid it all out there honestly, and he had some rough years.

But I would have loved to seen the little car that you had to drive though. You talked about the cars, how before, before things were going really well, he was driving a super sweet car and then all of a sudden he wasn't driving such a sweet car. Like in the United States, you're driving a Cadillac and all of a sudden now you're driving a Metro or a smart car, something like that.

All right. We'll be right back with Bill. Martha, you wanted to share something?

Martha: Just what you said, Jim, that Bill has gained so much wisdom that he's willing to share with the readers in this upcoming book that we're talking about. And we just really love sharing wisdom as well.

And one of those nuggets has to do with SaferNet VPN. And at iWork for him, we rely on SaferNet to protect our computers, whether we're at our home office, or on the road somewhere or in the office space. Wherever we are, SaferNet is a service not just for businesses, but also for our family. So their VPN, their virtual private network, is easy to set up with controls for the family and employees. And Jim, you know all about the controls, but it's wonderful.

Jim: What are you saying? I'm a control freak?

Martha: No, but this is your world. But SaferNet is just really set apart for its great pricing and its excellent security. So you can check them out. And I just want to encourage everyone. This is not, a lot of times we think it's just for business. It's for your home and all your personal devices as well. SaferNet. com

Jim: Bill, before we get into the last question about the stuff that God has you doing on the internet on a weekly basis, I want to hear from you because most of the people listening today are on the other end of the planet from you and they don't really know what God is doing in your country South Africa. Tell us what God is doing in South Africa right now.

Bill Hollis: We've just had an election where the ruling party has been shared politically. And my wife leads a prayer, whole prayer movement for South Africa. And we really prayed. And I think this is, can also encourage you in America to really pray. And the country's really been praying that we needed a change because the ruling party has been in power for 30 years. And just like all these others that take over, they really ruin the country. But God has supernaturally intervened. He's heard our prayers. My wife prophesied five years ago that there would be a shared government. And so what's happened in this last election, the ruling party got less than 50%, only got 40%.

So today we have a government of national unity where they've invited all the other parties together and they're sharing the portfolio. It is just exciting for our future. God answers these prayers. Even at the last minute, my wife also prophesied that we were praying that they would split the ruling government. And in the last three months, it looked like it was impossible. And God split the ruling government and one part broke away and they took 14 percent of the ruling party. So it took them from 54 percent down to 40%.

And so God is at work. I encourage you in America, pray for your country - pray. God is at work. He can do it. It's just that we mustn't be apathetic about it.

Jim: Good word.

Martha: Very good word. Because so many times it does seem like there's nothing we can do when the very most important thing we can do is to pray. So I hope that the listeners hear that word of wisdom from you right now. They don't have to wait for your book to hear that great wisdom from you.

So talk to us about your thriving online ministry that you're doing called The Marketplace. Tell us about it.

Bill Hollis: Being in the prophetic, we meet a lot of prophetic people. So we, I met David McDonald and he gave me a prophetic word. He said, God wants you to do cyber. And at that time we, we had a training school and in COVID we had to close it.

So I used to do marketplace Mondays and we used to have about 30 or 40 people attend, and so we closed it. And Janet and I decided we'll just start something on the web. And instead of being in our auditorium, we would just go on the web. So it was just in COVID. And then I got this word that God said I must go on cyber. So I thought cyber, I didn't even know what cyber is. I'm a lot older than I look. So I Google cyber, I need to find out the internet. And so I realized God wanted me to go into the internet.

So one night I was praying and I got the word hootsuite. Didn't know what it was. I downloaded it. I can't even tell you what I did today, but all of a sudden I was getting friend requests from all over the world, from Pakistan, South America. In three months, I had 5, 000 friends. Those days I was foolish. I just liked everybody. I took them on as friends. And within three months I couldn't take any more friends. And then I started doing this same thing I was doing in the auditorium, I started to put a program on once a week, I would put it once a week, and just sharing my stories and sharing stuff that the Lord had shown me over the years, dealing with the spiritual side.

And many people, you've got lots of books about leadership and everything, but many times they don't deal with the spiritual side that we face, and also soul issues which impact our work life. I'll give you an example, like a spirit of Mammon. If you don't understand the spirit of Mammon, you get caught up in it and you don't even know it. Many people don't even realize that they've been caught up in the spirit of Mammon. So there's a spiritual aspect of it. So that's what I started teaching. And then I would just decide I'll promote it a little bit now.

I'll promote it and it's 500 rand, which is about 25 dollars, which that's not a lot of money. Okay. And it's then all of it started, I would get 20, 000 views and 30, 000 views and it's grown and grown. And God has done it. I did nothing. I can't claim anything there. I take none of the glory. It's all the Lord. He does it. And this last one I did was 113, 000 views, and it's about 10, between 10 and 15, 000 playthroughs, because that's, for me, an important one. Viewing is one thing, but playthrough is important. So God is giving His message out, and I only advertise to Africans.

I don't go anywhere else. That's my market. That's my target. And God has done something supernaturally. Even one day I decided, I felt the Lord wanted for my journaling to put a little, these little daily posts on. So I used to post a little daily post. Used to get excited, a hundred thousand.

I'm fantastic. A hundred thousand, that people repost it and then get excited. One day, one post that was shared and reviewed reached 843, 000 people. Now, I could never have done that. It was only God that did it. I was just being obedient. I had to learn a new skill. I got a vMix program. I do my own programs. And I had to learn, at my age, I had to start learning all a new skill.

But God, when God has something and He's spoken, I can just encourage the viewers, when God has given you a word, just pursue it. All He's looking for is somebody that's willing to say, yes, Lord, I'll do it. And He will do the rest. He does. He only needs us, faith without works is dead. So we need us to do some faith. And I also got in my book, just the story, how it was hijacked.

Jim: So you keep mentioning that you're old, but you look about 60. How old are you really?

Bill Hollis: I turned 75 in last month, and two weeks ago. Yeah.

Martha: Happy birthday. I can't believe you called him out on that.

Jim: No, I know. Okay. I already knew the answer but what I want is that people understand, listen. Bill is starting - this is just a couple years ago during COVID. He started this. So he's in his 70s. So this is to the iRetire4Him audience that listens to iWork4Him.

God's not done with you yet. It's just a different phase of life and if Bill can start an online ministry to the continent of Africa in his 70s and reach hundreds of thousands of people, God can use you right where you're at as well. Bill, just really quick, what do you think the biggest draw is for the people that are following you and the materials that you're teaching?

Bill Hollis: I think I teach something different to everybody else because you can get many, I've done lots of extensive reading and you can get lots on leadership and you get lots on how to walk out our Christian business. But what I share is the issues that I've struggled with and because my mission now is to help others that they can also identify.

So in my book, I'm pretty open and very vulnerable, but it's to help others in a lot more detail than most people would put, but so that people could learn from it. When I share these things, and I deal with, spirit, like a principality of self. Nobody teaches on a principality of self, and nobody teaches about the orphan spirit. These are the things, and how it impacts the marketplace because we see it in the church, but we take ourselves from the church and we go to work.

Martha: That's right.

Bill Hollis: And so whatever we're dealing with goes with us to work. And so it's going to manifest in our work. So these are the things that I teach and that has helped. And I think that's why I've got lots of people say, I'm watching you from England. Someone says, I'm watching you from Australia, but the issue is not really me. It's really about the Lord helping others that from my journey, they can learn how to grow and they don't have to go through 50 years of hell, like I've been.

Martha: Well and we're grateful for that. And here's an opportunity for you. I would love for you to share one thing that you wanna say to the global audience that's listening about working with God in business. What is that one thing you'd say to them right now?

Bill Hollis: The one thing I would say, get to know the Holy Spirit. Cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit and learn to hear the voice of God for yourself. Because you want to hear Him. You want to listen to the Master. Just like Jesus, you want to be led by the Spirit of God. And when you're led by the Spirit of God, you'll see things move supernaturally. You then become a natural supernaturally. Okay? Because that's the key. Listen to the voice of God.

He's wanting to talk to every business person, whether you are a worker or whether you are a owner. He's wanting to speak to you and if you would listen and if you would learn, and there's many programs that you can hear today, going on the internet, and hear how to hear the voice of God. But that is the key to your success, is listen to the Voice of God.

Jim: Bill Hollis, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Appreciate it.

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.