There is one parable in the Bible that I really love and I think captures part of what I am trying to say, and that’s the Parable of the Talents. You know, we all were given certain gifts by God. It is our job to multiply them.

Business people of faith in a competitive environment can be more Christ-like, more servant-like than the church that assumes it’s that way because it has that mission.” And there’s something about a competitive environment that improves quality and service. So this servant-hood and competitiveness to serve better, they go hand in hand.

If more families in any community are engaged directly in business or benefit as a supplement to business having been created, then you find that people are happier. There’s social cohesion; societies are more amiable.

I think the most sustainable way is for opportunity to be created, so that people can engage in enterprise… If you had employed five people, if your business grows, then you will then employ twelve and eighteen and thirty, and a hundred. It’s happened in my business experience. A hundred families are being supported by Color Creations to date, directly. I haven’t even begun to talk about the families supported by the creditors and suppliers that I work with, or the other stakeholders in my business. That’s just one business.

In the narrative of creation, work is not bad, work is not punishment…. When you read the narrative, you will see that work was the gift of God; that He, God, is a worker. He’s a creator. And he put man on the earth to be the steward to cultivate, to create, to be, as it were, a co-creator, even, with God.

When Jesus was asked as to what the greatest commandment was, he said to love the Lord, but he said, “Like unto that is to love your neighbor,” so you’ve got the “love God” and “love other people.” And the primary way we love other people is through our vocations.

The internal integration of faith in the business is where we as Christians try to live out a gospel 24/7. We take Biblical principles and we bring them into the management of the business – what I call management style evangelism in which the way we deal with our people, the way we deal with our employees, their families, with the suppliers we deal with, the vendors, with our clients and our customers – everything there should reflect the love of Jesus, reflect excellence that our Lord called us to, that we are accountable to in the end.

I see work as a blessing to us. I had a chance to retire one time. I tried it and I found that I absolutely was bored silly. I thought, “Am I just going to hit the little white ball around and golf on the golf course for the rest of my life? Is this all that I was created for? Is this all the meaning I can have out of life?” No, I get my meaning out of life by working, by relating to others, by creating, pouring myself into other people, and I do that through my family, I do that through my business. I do that by giving to my students, pouring my life into them and my business, pouring my life into my employees and into my customers, and that to me is where joy comes from. It’s a fulfilled life, it’s an exciting life and quite frankly, it couldn’t be that good, and not be of the Lord.

It’s easier to write a check than it is to give of yourself.… All too often that’s what the people in the pews have done and the churches have told us, that the NGOs have told us – that’s all they need, they want our money ... But when you go to find people in these countries, and they don’t have jobs and you realize what they need is not just a check, but they need a job, they need meaningful work. God made us creative, he made us to work—what they need is the kind of dignity that comes with a paycheck that says, ‘Somebody values my services, somebody values my life, and I have dignity.’

One of the problems we saw in Kazakhstan when I was on the mission field there was that the people didn’t have jobs. The men were out, they didn’t think well of themselves so what did they do? They turned to the bottle; alcoholism problems were really rampant. They’re angry, they’re frustrated, they have no hope in life, and they don’t see any value in their life. But you take that same person, you give them a job, you give them something meaningful, and it can totally change their attitude toward life and gives them hope, gives them promise … So business not only creates valuable goods and services, but we’re creating employment for people that allows them to have a whole different sense of who they are, what their purpose is, and what their hope is for the future. And the social implications of that are just enormous.

The argument has been made that global capitalism, or the expansion of free markets, by its nature hurts the poor, and I think that is a seriously untutored idea. The way in which people rise out of poverty is not through state-to-state aid, not at the generosity or behest of bureaucrats, no matter how well intended, no matter how good personally these people may be. But it’s through the opportunities that people have in their families, in their localities, to exchange value, to be involved in business. Business is the normative way in which people rise out of poverty, not state-to-state aid, not the largess of politicians and bureaucrats.