ASI Southern Union 2016

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ASI Southern Union

Jared Thurmon

Business and Religion

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that we have the opportunity to be here together today.

We pray for those who may still be on their way.

We pray for our families that may not be here with us.

And Lord, we ask that your spirit will be in this room.

We Thank you for the passion that David shared.

I pray that you will inspire each of us with a calling to do things we've never imagined.

Okay, we're gonna try and do our best to keep this very interactive, so don't let your brain go into a passive mode.

I'd like to ask you some questions as we go, and I think we're going to have a good time together.

To begin, I'd like to know who we are, where our world views are coming from.

How many of us are involved in the leadership of a ministry, an organization we would deem as a ministry?

We aren't in those first 2 categories, but we're in a third category, we work for a company?

And if you're retired, how many of you have worked for a company or owned a business?

I think that's all of us in some way or another.

A little bit about me, I was honored to grow up in a Seventh-day Adventist home with parents that believed in inspiring their kids that they could do whatever they wanted.

My dad was 1 who was kicked out of a few of our Adventist high schools, and I think as the story goes, I think he got his GED.

I met my mom who became an Adventist through a beautiful event called Public Evangelism.

And I had the pleasure of meeting my wife at Southern Adventist University and told my dad all along I said you know that I want to be an entrepreneur.

That's what I've seen you do since just a few years old.

I was around on job sites and different business things.

I think you're supposed to request it after graduation and I knew what I wanted to do.

So she went to Southern and to Walla Walla and got a psychology degree.

But I want to talk about something that I'm very passionate about, that we have often thought that business and religion are 2 entirely separate things.

And arguably, a lot of times in our ministries and in conventions like this, we often don't know.

And so some of us will say, you know what, I'm a business person, I support ministry.

And I'm not so sure that's the way it should be.

Or some of us who are in business, to think of how we're sharing our faith in the marketplace as kind of, well, I mean I share my faith personally, but how do you do that in the marketplace with people that may have nothing to do or may not want anything to do with my faith or religion?

So we're gonna talk through some of these things today, and I'm excited to share with you, hopefully, some ideas that'll inspire you, and then I have a lot of questions for you.

So I hope you're ready to answer some of those.

It's basically 3 parts of this presentation.

So part 1, then we're gonna have a discussion time of part 2, and this afternoon will be kind of a wrap up part 3.

And I find it a joy that I can use the Bible in spirit of prophecy, because to me that's, there's nothing like seeing into the future, unless knowing where we've come from and what God has given to a movement to give us eyes to see.

There is a fearfulness to venture out and to run risks in this great work, fearing that the expenditure of means would not bring returns.

What if means are used and yet we cannot see that souls have been saved by it?

What if there is a dead loss of a portion of our means?

Better work and keep it work than do nothing.

You know not which shall prosper, this or that.

I have a opinion, and that's all it is, that Seventh-day Adventists are a very fearful people.

And yet we know the statement that perfect love casts out all fear.

And if we do some inversion of that statement, could it be that there's a reason there's so much fear is there's not enough love amongst us?

So I talked to 2 different people recently, 1 a venture capitalist.

If anybody has been involved with business, you know at times you need venture capital to get going.

I said, tell me, I read about these big deals and I hear about all these investments taking place, all these valuations.

How many businesses do you invest in that make money?

1 out of 10 9 we're gonna lose Move them through but that tenth will hit and it makes money for the rest of them and keep going Now he's in a league that is in a league of its own.

But it's obviously they do their due diligence, but they know it's a system.

You know, the scriptures say, "'Sow your seed upon many waters.

"'We know not which shall prosper.'" And to me, that's an example.

Another person I sat next to on a plane a few weeks ago, he was a film producer.

I said, hey, I know some individuals in this room and some others, they wanna create film.

And yet, his business is blossoming, and the venture business is blossoming.

And I thought, if we looked at soul winning that way, what would that look like?

I want to read another statement to you along the lines of this.

Eloite says in Christ Object Lessons 349, religion and business are not 2 separate things.

You have felt that business is business, religion is religion, but I tell you that these cannot be divorced.

If you seek God with the whole heart, he will be found of you.

But said Christ, without me you can do nothing.

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Business and Religion

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