Episode 378 - Why Your Business Is a Gospel Platform | JD Greear

**JD Greear** (0:00)
There's a guy named Lesley Newbiggin. He was a missionary to India for like 40 some years, between 1920 and 1970 Comes back to England, and he said, in the time that I was gone, we changed in England from a nation where we had pastors of a Christianized nation to where pastors need to learn the skills of the missionary. And he said, one of the most important things that the missionary teaches, if you're in a pagan context, is that the first interface of the gospel and culture is in the workplace.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
Bold visionaries, faithful disruptors. Some call them crazy, but they are called to create. Under his power, for his glory. The Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast.
In this episode, Pastor JD Greear makes the case that entrepreneurs are the tip of the gospel spear. He challenges pastors to affirm the sacred nature of marketplace work, and invites entrepreneurs to see their businesses as gospel platforms. Let's listen in on this conversation filmed at South by Southwest.

**Justin Forman** (1:07)
So JD, one of the fun things for me at 45 is just like looking back. And maybe it's because I got three kids.

**JD Greear** (1:14)
It's your ripe old age of 45

**Justin Forman** (1:15)
Ripe old age of 45, right? You start looking back. That probably is a later conversation. But maybe it's because I got a junior, soon to be senior in high school, and you're starting just to look back at time and like, man, where did it go?

**JD Greear** (1:26)
Right.

**Justin Forman** (1:27)
But also celebrating kind of the moments.
And when I think about just kind of like the conversation over the last decade or two, like a lot's happened. And I'm reminded when we're starting right now in media, we have these conferences, we have these events, and we knew that there's these two audiences not talking to each other, but we need to get them in the same room. We need to get pastors and entrepreneurs. And you spoke at this work as worship conferences, and man, it was just like a lightning rod of encouragement to so many of the entrepreneurs in that space, and so much has happened since. What have you seen just broadly in the church about this conversation with faith, work, and entrepreneurship over the last 10, 20 years?

**JD Greear** (2:10)
Yeah, you know, as soon as you mentioned that, because I remember when I was in that, I did some interview, and I mean this to sound as ridiculous as it's going to sound, okay? So I'm aware of that. But the guy said something, he's like, you know, because you're one of the nation-wide experts on, you know, and I was like, I've like, you know, done like two messages on it. I feel like I'm about that deep in the pool on it, but it just, it spoke to the fact that there was such little that it was being talked about there. And I think what really pushed it to the surface, Justin, is there's a guy named Leslie Newbiggin, who wrote, he was a missionary to India for like 40 some years between 1920 and 1970 He comes back to England and he said, in the time that I was gone, we changed in England from a nation where we had pastors of a Christianized nation to where pastors need to learn the skills of the missionary. And he said one of the most important things that the missionary teaches, if you're in a pagan context, is that the first interface of the gospel and culture is in the workplace and in the neighborhood and in the home. He said the Pope was important, but that's going to be the first place of... Well, you're hearing that Billy Graham, one of the things he said before he died, Next Great Awakening is in the workplace. I think there's just been this moment where people realize like, okay, this is not auxiliary that I do to pay the bills so that the pastor can do the work of the ministry. And so we can go out to the mall and pass out tracts and water bottles. I mean, that's great.
But the first place of interaction of gospel transformation happens here. And I think we kind of got forced into it. The culture kind of put us there, but it actually made us, as often happens, rediscover a really important biblical doctrine. You know, I can't remember who said it first, but the Great Commission is not the First Commission. You can argue it's the most important commission, but the First Commission was the Creation Commission.
And that way of going out into the world to bless it, to develop it, that's not stuff we do just to pay the bills. That is actually a very important part of preaching the gospel.