Jim: You've tuned in to iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: And 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: To say that our country's at a critical crossroads is an understatement. Am I talking politics? Heck no. That's not what this show is about. I'm talking about the church forgetting how to be the church. For 70 or 80 years, the church has become a cruise ship in our society. For 70 years, the church has withdrawn from culture and is focused inwardly on creating an environment where everyone goes to church, feels part of the family, but the community around the church and the community around the church building feels a little alienated, irritated, and lost.

We've got to remember what being the church looks like, feels like, and acts like. I found one guy out of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area who's acting like the church and changing lives forever through creating a multi generational mentoring program. Eric Fogg, welcome to iWork4Him.

Eric Fogg: Hey, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Jim: Eric, we always start off every show with this question. What's your Jesus story?

Eric Fogg: I got a really cool Jesus story, especially in the relationship to mentoring. My story started out really young. I started in business when I was nine years old. My father started a business on purpose to train all of us boys - I'm the oldest of five boys - to do business. And he bought a lathe, which is a machine that turns parts. And we started carving plastic when I was nine, I was the only employee. And as you aged up, the other brothers, when they turned nine also became part of the business.

And dad started an intentionally mentorship business. Simple stuff: writing invoices, shipping packages, going through the process of being on time, which we almost never were. And started that process of just growing inward towards business. He also was a giant Jesus lover, and so we got the two things at the same time of both spiritual, mental, and generational mentorship.

Kind of like in the Old Testament where the father would walk with the son and teach him his trade. And really had that till 14 years old. And then he and I bought another business that made pen sets for banks. So locally here, if you've ever been to a bank with a pen on a chain and a filter, I probably made that here in the Grand Rapids area.

By the time I was 18 years old, I got fired. The family rules were you had to get fired. As you had to go off and work for somebody else, go to college, get married, work for someone else for five years before you could even be eligible to apply back to the family business to work there. And out of that thought process I did not join the family business.

I ended up meeting a wonderful lady. We've been married almost 30 years and have four wonderful assets that God has allowed us to take and steward in our household. They're 25, 23, 21, and 13. And, as we were going through this process of business, growing, life, we were a mess. We were a raging, stinking mess.

Our story is more along the lines of - our marriage, as we have agreed to call it now, was seven years of health, seven years of hard, seven years of healing, seven years of hope, and I'm praying that these next seven years are the seven years of hot, but we're working on it.

Jim: This is a PG rated show.

 (laughter)

Eric Fogg: 30 years into it and we are, we're doing great. But, our mentoring process really got started when we were in the seven years of HARD. We were so desperate for someone to come into our space to help us. We literally went to our church and said, will you provide someone to walk with us? And they heard our problems and they said, very politely no. We went to a big church, and we got no's from everyone we asked.

And we effectively started the process of starving to death for mentorship. Fast forward 10 years, we ended up buying a small business here, ran it for 12 years. God called us out and we sold everything we had and moved to Costa Rica for language school. Six and a half years in the jungles of Ecuador doing clean water projects for a Christian mission agency and came back here to Holland, Michigan, seven years ago.

And we were told we were a mess. I don't know how else to describe that as we had gone through a worldview change and stepped back into - the world we left and the world we came back to we're not the same. Lots of funny stories there we'll save for another time . And in the process of doing that we got introduced to mentorship , and a couple of young men said hey will you take and meet with us ? And so I started that process, eventually starting the thing through Truth at Work and doing what we call now Emerging Leaders.

Jim: So that's really the question we want to ask. So you're an engineer by trade and now you've answered how you became a business mentor. So a couple of guys approach you, but how did Truth at Work come into this? Tell people about what Truth at Work is and how it came to be a part of it.

Eric Fogg: So when we came back from Ecuador, we didn't leave on the terms that we'd ever dreamed. They were most unpleasant. And I spent the next six months being mad at God. I literally thought that God had yanked away the calling that he had so clearly placed on our life. And it took nine months to come to the place of thank you. Thank you, Lord, for, I know this sounds terrible, but thank you, Lord, for my mom passing away.

That became the catalyst that started this process, and she loved Jesus very much. And thank you, Lord, for all these six or seven things that lined up randomly, and we thought that we had lost our air. And God was trying to save our family. And it became very clear after nine months of this process that God was on a mission. And what felt like horrible was absolutely hands down an incredible blessing. It just didn't feel like it. It's like thanking God for unanswered prayers. And as we got through this process, I didn't know what to do with myself and finally declared to the Lord. All right. I know I'm here on purpose.

So there must be a purpose for me to be here. And I started just turning over stones in my life. All right, that's an opportunity. I'll hang on to that one. Nope, nope. Nope, and one of those opportunities came up with Truth at Work.

Jim: So hang on to that thought and I'm gonna let Martha finish that line of questioning but we want to take a break and just thank one of our sponsors .

So I love the name Truth at Work. It has so many meanings, truth, work, put it all together. It should not be assumed that companies we surround ourselves with biblical truth operate truthfully. We had a lot of people that are Christians are in business. They don't necessarily do that. But we know that there are many companies that directly oppose our biblical standards yet we utilize their services out of convenience for ourselves. We've recently identified several services that our audience needs and found kingdom solutions for each one of those needs. Go to the sponsor page on the iWork4Him website to learn more about these solutions and connect with them today. iWork4Him.com/sponsors and a little later in the show Martha's going to tell you about a specific company that you should pay attention to today.

Martha: Eric, you've given us some great background and how God has obviously worked in your heart in a lot of different ways, but let's talk specifically about Truth at Work and maybe just who might be listening that's actually a good fit for Truth at Work near them?

Eric Fogg: Truth at Work is a mission based organization out of Indianapolis, Indiana. It's about 25 years old. I run a local chapter office here in West Michigan. And it services really two separate groups of people. One are business owners and leaders, people that are firmly established, that are struggling with hurts, habits, hangups.

They're struggling with Partnership agreements, EOS, inventory management systems wealth management, transfer of business, buying and selling of companies, all the things that run through a business owner's head and essentially Truth at Work is a round table where you can answer what I believe is the hardest question a business owner has ever been asked , and that's how are you?

Cause business owners lie. They told the truth once at home and scared their spouse. They told the truth at church. They scared everybody. They finally just said, listen, this is not worth it. You don't understand. I don't have time to explain it to you. You're not going to understand it anyway, and I'm fine.

Jim: Which means, freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional, but most people don't know the code. Truth at Work, it's a round table for business people. Is it just business people, or is it organizational leaders as well?

Eric Fogg: It can be leaders as well. Every chapter president sets the standard depending on how many kinds of businesses are in their space. For me, personally in West Michigan, if you have a great business idea wow, this is transformational. And the question that goes through your mind is, I have to ask my boss if I can do that. Then you're not high enough in the organization to do Truth at Work on the established leader side. But that is exactly opposite on the emerging leader side.

Jim: You're always, you're leading me. Like that was my question next. Those are my questions. All right. So here's the deal. So you've got a couple of these Truth at Work groups with groups of 10 or 12 business leaders, organizational leaders, coming together, being honest with each other, trying to grow in all those areas that you mentioned. And, but you've out of this have grown four groups of Emerging Leaders. How did that start?

Eric Fogg: So it literally started with three guys and breakfast at a restaurant here in town. Nothing fancy. They just said, Hey, we're meeting together. We're stuck. And we started to just sit down and talk about business, life, marriage opportunities, just.. Usually Emerging Leaders, they're struggling with their first girlfriend, they're just getting married, they're just having their first kid, just buying a house, trying to figure out the difference between a job and a career, and their life is in chaos. I love it. It is so high speed. When they're on kingdom mission, they're growing so fast that they can't keep up with themselves.

And so we started with three and over the course of maybe a year, it grew to 12. And it stayed at 12 for a long time, about four years unchanged. And then it went from 12 to 17 to 28, almost immediately, from a calendar point of view. The lives of the men that were in the group were so changed that they couldn't stop telling their friends about it.

And out of the process of literal business minded, Jesus focused community, they started to take and just spread the word and Truth at Work Emerging Leaders is a fantastic place. You don't have to be a business owner. You don't have to be married. You don't have to be from separate companies. All we require is that you love Jesus. And that you want to change.

Martha: Awesome.

Eric Fogg: Because Emerging Leaders is totally geared for change.

Martha: So you talked at the beginning of the show about how important mentoring is to you. And you are using that with Emerging Leaders. You're actually finding a mentor for every one of them, is that correct?

Eric Fogg: Yeah, so it started out that I was the mentor. But as the groups grew that became impractical and I committed to the group and said I will do my best to find a mentor at least 20 to 30 years older than you for every single person so that you can have someone to go to lunch with and they can ask you the hardest question of how are you . And through this process of searching out mentors, I realized a couple of things.

When we were growing up as kids, we went to church together. Old people, middle people, young people. During the 80s and 90s, you had old person church and middle person church and young person church. By the time it got to COVID, old people had moved so far away from church that they didn't even know a young person anymore. And technology got in the way where they didn't know what to do with them, how to communicate with them.

And then COVID got in the way and everybody became afraid to mix circles. And I realized that as a 54 year old guy, half of my friends were old and half of them were young. And I could be a link to link the generations together to allow those relationships to get built. And it has been super, super powerful.

Martha: Has it been hard to find those mentors then for the Emerging Leaders? To make that link, to make that connection?

Eric Fogg: The first 20 were easy. They were closer friends, so I didn't ask them as much as I assigned them a guy. The next 18 has been much harder as it's gone out more into larger circles and had to seek out partner, reach out to CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Committee, and others in the local area to expand that ring.

Because not only are the Emerging Leaders now geographically further away, but they're also outside of my sphere of influence and I've had to reach out. So it has been noticeably harder for the last 18 than the first.

Jim: So would you say that when you connect up a chronologically superior person with somebody who's chronologically inferior that mentoring relationship, is this being successful? Are you seeing lives changed spiritually spiritual walks deepened?

Eric Fogg: Yes.

Jim: Okay, that's what you say. That's what you say, but you got somebody that can prove that to our audience. Tell us who you brought in with you today.

Eric Fogg: I brought with me Paul Dunteman. He is one of the Emerging Leaders started on the first 12 people. And he's been walking with Emerging Leaders for the last, Ooh, I would guess four years. I'm getting old. So my timeframe gets all messed up.

Martha: Yeah. He says five.

Jim: Paul, welcome to iWork4Him. It's nice that Eric says it's going great, but I want to hear it from your mouth. First of all, where does God have you working right now today?

Paul Dunteman: Yeah thanks for having me on the show today. Right now I am a consultant in new markets tax credits. Really high level, that's a funding source available for typically new construction projects or rehabilitation projects in low income communities. So a lot of the organizations that I work with to help get access to the funding are supportive housing organizations that might have wraparound services, new medical facilities, workforce development programs.

Martha: Excellent. So as far as mentorship is concerned, did you want, were you seeking a mentor or did Eric tell you this was something you had to participate in?

Paul Dunteman: Eric and I got a kick out of that question when we were reviewing some of the questions. I think for a long time, I've known the value of having a mentor and I would break it into two different categories.

You have your spiritual mentors that help you with your faith walk, and then you have your business mentors. And when I met Eric, he married the two together where our businesses are actually impacted by our relationship with God. And so I visited a meeting for the first time and hearing the attendees and the guys go deep quickly and just be vulnerable, it created a space that I didn't want to miss out on and so Eric unintentionally forced me into it by creating such a good space that was hard to not want to be part of.

Jim: He volun- told you. That's right. So Paul, the value of having somebody in your life who's chronologically superior to you - hats off to Grant Skelton who came up with that term, Chronologically superior - How much has that been of value to you to have somebody that's in your life who's further along in life and experience than you are?

Paul Dunteman: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think having someone further along in life is really helpful in separating emotion from reality when you encounter problems and issues . There's a lot of times and even this past year, I had a something come up in my own career that was problematic to me and I couldn't find a way out and had a lot of negative emotion to that And Eric looked at that same exact problem and said, this is great. You have great opportunity. And being able to see it from his perspective of how this issue was actually opportunity just changed the way that I look at my own emotions compared to what the reality is.

Martha: Yeah. So really having that person to bounce things off of and give you that different perspective is so valuable in so many ways. How about it in your own personal walk with the Lord and in your own home even? How has the mentoring helped?

Paul Dunteman: Eric has eight rules, actually nine, that's in the making right now. And you can tell from his story, these were formed as he was going through his own walk with the Lord and his rule number one is this world is not my home. I will stop treating it like it is. And what he's meaning with that rule is separating our identity from the world and placing our identity in Christ.

And the past year and a half, that's been something that I've had to separate identity from status at work or money that I could make at work, or titles and place that identity into Christ and that's impacted my marriage. It's impacted my career. And It's just an example of one of the nuggets that we generate from having a mentor.

Jim: Yeah I don't remember who originated but somebody once said, some famous person came up with the idea that everybody needs a Paul in their life, a Barnabas in their life, and a Timothy in their life. So you've got Eric as one of your Paul's, maybe he's your Barnabas too. And you've got this other mentor . Who's your Timothy? Are you mentoring anyone yet, Paul?

Paul Dunteman: Yeah, I'm really humbled and honored to be leading a Truth at Work round table. Now, as Eric mentioned, the amount of guys that want to go through this has just increased a lot the past year. And so right now we're trying to figure out how can we build a scalable model of not just having Eric in the room, but having a Paul in the room or a Josh in the room and being able to be intentional and get deep quickly with guys and really share where God guides, He provides and that the challenges that we face if we're going after where God calls us to be, that's exactly where we need to be. So that just started three months ago, and it's been amazing so far.

Jim: So final question. Didn't tell you I was gonna ask this one, but that's okay. You mentioned you were married . So what's your wife's first name?

Paul Dunteman: Nicole.

Jim: If we were to call Nicole and say, Hey, Nicole, Jim and Martha with iWork4Him, we're interviewing Paul today. He says that mentoring has made a huge impact on his life. Would you say it's made an impact on your marriage? What would Nicole say?

Paul Dunteman: That's a good question. I I think there'd be some things I would be a little afraid of. I think Nicole ultimately would say I've become more open. So I've been able to share more with her on maybe where I'm feeling and where I'm at. And I think just becoming the leader of the household, recognizing that I'm called to be provider from God, but I'm not provider. God's ultimately provider. Just recentering our relationship and marriage in a way that is following after God's calling in our life so that he's ultimate provider.

Jim: Good answer. Now, if Nicole has any questions, you can, my phone number, it's online. You could have her calling. Thanks for that answer though, Paul.

Martha: We love that, Paul. Thank you so much. And I think that's one of the values of having this conversation is that for many of us, we don't have anyone speaking into our marriages and having a safe space that is biblically grounded is huge.

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Jim: As we close out the show today, Eric, there's a ton of people listening who would love to know how to start a mentoring relationship with an emerging leader or an emerging leader who would like to start a mentoring relationship with somebody chronologically superior to them, but they don't have any idea. How do you even get started? What kind of advice do you have for them today, Eric?

Eric Fogg: I guess my first advice would be to the chronologically advanced, just chronologically superior, instead of challenged. So the chronologically superior person, there's no such thing as retirement. Just cause you stop working for a living, don't stop being the kingdom of God. You finally have enough time, talent, money, and energy to take and give back. And what God has given you is a great gift.

Find somebody that, I can be a testament, and Paul can too, the emerging leaders range between say 21 and 30 years old, is starving to death to meet with somebody, and you don't have to have a book or a program or anything complicated, just sit down with a younger person and ask him, how are you? And listen .

To the younger person , it's challenging. I'd start praying I have found unfortunately that many people that you ask as a younger person, will you mentor me? They say no. And I'm sorry about that. I'm embarrassed about that, but please don't give up. Find someone that is passionate about mentorship. They are golden nuggets in your life. They can walk with you for a decade or even two. They can transform your life. Someone that is 20 years to 30 years older than you that can guide and help out with marriage and business and life and perspective. You will not regret investing in the life of a mentor.

Jim: Eric and Paul, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today, and thanks so much for bringing Truth at Work and the Emerging Leaders. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. Check out Truth at Work online at truthatwork. org and Martha will have all the links in the show notes. So thank you both for being here today with us.

Eric Fogg: Oh, thank you very much for having us. Wonderful.

Jim: 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.