— by Pierce Brantley

“Can we pray before we go inside?” asked my colleague.

I was pleasantly surprised. I was new to the team, and we were about to enter a high-stakes client meeting. I agreed to their request, and they began to pray. My colleague prayed with deep conviction. They covered everything—asking for favor in the meeting, understanding from our client, and for God to be glorified through our work. When they finished, I was on cloud nine. I felt so honored to be in a place where prayer was the cultural norm. But no sooner had I opened my eyes than they asked me another question.

“Would you mind if we prayed for our atheist colleague too? They will be in the meeting, and I want this time to witness to them as well.”

How could I say no? This was incredible. They doubled down and prayed that they, too, would see that God moves in business, would open up to the power of Jesus, and see that Christians could be good at enterprise too. Now I was really excited. This was real faith in action.

After the prayer, we left the car and walked toward the client’s building. But once again, my colleague stopped me. “Pierce, you know what…this is God’s business, right? I think we need to do something different. I know the client is upset about their ad performance, but I think we need to take the opportunity to witness to them. After all, God can save the account if He wants to.” I nodded and marveled at their extreme faith.

Once inside, we entered the client’s largest boardroom. The room was filled with the company’s C-level executives. After everyone settled, my colleague announced that instead of the agreed agenda, they had a special presentation. Immediately they launched into a 45-minute talk about their personal testimony, stories of healing, and how they had seen God move over the years.

When they finished talking, the room went silent. After a long minute, a stakeholder slowly raised their hand.

“Thank you for that inspirational talk,” they said. “I have just one question. What are you going to do about our failing ad performance? We have no way to track whether our ad spend is effective, and by all accounts, our campaign is failing.”

The atheist on our team crumbled in embarrassment.

We had no answer. We weren’t prepared for this conversation. Worse still, it demonstrated an immediate gap in our stewardship of the client’s resources. The client knew this and fired us shortly after.

Stewardship is a Spectrum

Our experience was painful. But it stirred a new desire in me to discover the true definition of a Kingdom business. If prayer and testimony alone didn’t move the needle, I wondered, then what would? Through my work on the Eternal Entrepreneur and consulting with Christian business owners, I have learned that Kingdom businesses are on a continuum. Because they are on a continuum, some faith driven businesses have more impact than others.

My research has also led me to see that there are, in fact, three stages of a Kingdom business. Each stage has a little more impact than its predecessor. Through this insight, I have also discovered that many well-meaning Christian business owners will get stuck at various stages and don’t even realize it. Since they don’t see the stall, they unknowingly miss out on greater opportunities for Kingdom impact and business-led ministry. Let’s look at each stage to learn more about their impact, constraints, and how you can become a stage-three entrepreneur.

Stage One: The Values-Centered Business

Stage one is defined by values. Christian businesses that define themselves by their values are everywhere. When you look at their mission statement or company roster, you will see words like integrity, honesty, and the golden rule as the key differentiating factors of the business. Having worked with many businesses in this stage, I have seen a startling theme emerge. Businesses that only value values don’t bring value to the marketplace.

Now, am I saying that values aren’t important? Absolutely not. We need biblical values in business. But values alone do not create a valuable offering; they just reveal the business owner's heart for godliness.

Moreover, so-called worldly businesses typically have the same values as the Christian ones. In fact, consumers are beginning to show a preference for missionaly-led businesses, regardless of their religious backing, and see it as a form of personal integrity to choose a company based on what it values. So in this way, a values-centered business is simply table stakes. Biblical values are a requirement but not a differentiator.

Of course, you could argue that your definition of honesty may not mean the same thing as another business’s definition of honesty. Still, this type of distinction is largely moot to the consumer. Values are a foundation, not a fulcrum. I have found that Christian businesses that differentiate on values alone will see their competition grow beyond them; because they offer more than values. But businesses that have good values can move on to stage two.

Stage Two: The Excellence-Minded Business

Stage two is all about excellence. Christian businesses that focus on excellence are great at execution. They know what their customers want, and they deliver what the market is asking for. They also tend to attract great talent and may have high ratings on platforms like Google and Yelp. But excellence-minded businesses often wonder why they never see the success of those businesses that have pioneered before them. Herein lies the issue with the excellence-minded business.

The excellence-minded business will deliver what the market wants, but they offer nothing new. They simply deliver at a high standard when they could define the standard i.e. creating new markets and new products. Entrepreneurs who run excellent businesses will often belabor the point that they may not be Tesla or Apple, but they are good stewards. Here too, there is room to grow.

Stewardship is an invitation to take what you have and, with a little risk, grow beyond what you’ve been given. The good news is that there is little risk when the Spirit leads. This brings us to stage three.

Stage Three: The Spirit-Led Business

The third stage of a kingdom business involves the Spirit. In Genesis, we see that the Spirit of God hovered over the “surface of the deep.” Everything was formless and void. Soon after, something was created from nothing, and a world filled with good work was made. But that’s not end. The Spirit is still hovering over unformed markets and the void of human need. But now, we get to partner with God in the creative process. This is what a stage-three Kingdom business does. Leaders who want to provide real value to the marketplace prayerfully ask God what the real problems in the marketplace are (or will be) and then seek Him for inspiration on how to solve those problems.

The biblical Joseph story provides us with a great example. Through a dream, God revealed to Joseph that a famine was coming to Egypt and that hard times were ahead. But he didn’t tell Joseph what to do with that information.

Joseph could have simply continued to lead by example, relished in the honor of getting secret revelation, and continued to do his job well. But he used his experience as an administrator to create a system that both stored and distributed food throughout a difficult economic period. God didn’t tell him to do this part.

Joseph could have just assumed the famine was a judgment. But instead, he saw it as an opportunity to help those who would be hurting. The result was that Egypt both survived the famine and made a profit, too, when they sold grain to other nations.

Joseph knew that revelation comes with a wrench—meaning if God reveals something to the leader, the leader must do something with that insight.

Revelation must be absorbed by the heart and applied by the hand. Christian businesses that lead with innovation know what God is up to and use that knowledge to bring consumers a solution that directly connects with the pain they feel and the needs they have.

Assess Your Business

After working with many Kingdom Businesses, I have discovered that most businesses exist on a spectrum. For many faith driven businesses, there are areas where they do, in fact, innovate. But there is not always a lot of thought to how those innovations are backed by biblical values. In the same vein, some parts of their business may be very values-centered but offer little tangible value to the employee or consumer. We see the same thing with excellence: an excellence business does not an innovative business make.

The goal for us, as Christian entrepreneurs, is to prayerfully assess each part of our business and see if they are pro-actively pursuing a roadmap that moves every person, department, and offering toward a stage-three perspective. Consider taking some time with the leaders on your team to prayerfully assess your business and consider what stage you are at, and what you can do to continue to grow as a spirit-led entrepreneur. If you do, you will begin to see that the spirit of God is still hovering over all sorts of unformed potential in the marketplace.

Want to learn more about building a God-honoring business? Check out “3 Stages of Business Growth” and our Bible reading plan: “6 Stages of a Startup.”