Early Jesus People Businesses As the Size of the Group Grew Their Need for Money to Support Them Grew in Kind

Unless the Lord Builds the House By Tim Bock

Unless the Lord Builds the House

Contents

Introduction v

1 A Life in Mission Business 1

2 Share and Live Simply 17

3 Mission Business 37

4 Hard Knocks to Reality 64

5 Direct Ministries 76

6 Kingdom Business Sense 96

7 JPUSA sharing with Romania 106

8 At the Heart of It All 117

9 Can we be content with daily bread? 132

Appendix 139

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special thanks and an eternal gratitude goes first to my incredible, wonderful wife. She keeps me focused on Jesus, our first love. To my four awesome kids, who keep me young at heart. I am so grateful to the whole Lakefront team who has put their lives into serving Jesus in business with me. Thanks also to my pastoral team who lives out God’s grace. I want to thank Bente James and Chris Rice, who have lived, eaten, and drunk this project. Without their passion in it, it would never have happened. A big thanks to Jay Rothschild, who finished the project and has helped me launch Nehemiah challenge website so that we all can keep the conversation going of using business in missions. Lastly I want to thank Curt Mortimer who resurrected this project just weeks before he went on to glory. His thoughtful encouragements were the reason this is now a completed project so many years after its start. Many people encouraged me to write this book, one being Paul Larsen, the President Emeritus of the Evangelical Covenant Church who has marveled over God’s incredible work He accomplished amongst “these Jesus People.” Another key factor in writing this was our banker’s need for insight into our organization.

Blessings to you all, Tim Bock

INTRODUCTION

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. (1 Pet. 3:15-16, NRSV) Through the years people have asked me why do you give away all your income, if not money, what motivates you to do all this work. This book is, in part, an attempt to answer that question. The other part is an invitation into a world of business and relationships reimagined in behalf of people, rather than monetary sums and hierarchal financial structures. What I want to do is show you my life and my people at a glance. The only way you can really know what I’m talking about is to come and see it for yourself. Jesus People USA Covenant Church is an intentional community of 260 people pooling their resources to serve each other and the neighborhood we live in, with 30 businesses in 45 years to support it. We’re not unique in our mission because the Body of Christ has been doing this work in one way or another for centuries but we are significant. Our particular story, especially where it concerns Business as Missions, bears repeating. There are many books about Business as Missions. When I began this book my editorial team and I asked what it was we had to say that was new. There is a wealth of resources out there for anyone wanting to start a business in order to fund missions. If you notice one very different thing about this book it should be that to us following Jesus in a business means leading in collaboration, not leading alone. Along those same lines, mentoring and servant leadership involve a mutual vulnerability that comes slowly over time, and at great personal cost. What’s in it for me? You’ll hear me say it over and over in this book. It’s really no secret. Relationships. I’m learning daily to live life with and for people. It’s hard to convey what a richly rewarding experience it is to see friends that I work with giving away their time

next to a homeless person at our community. Mopping the floor after one of our parties, listening to the children’s conversations makes me feel so alive, so awake to the world. You can’t buy that with money. But I can’t glorify community either. Community is what you put into it. It’s hard work, and it’s easy to forget why you get started in the first place. I’m excited about what I do. I’m excited about the vision we had at the beginning, and most of what I do as a member of the pastoral team and a mission-business general manager is spread that vision. JPUSA’s understanding of itself has grown over time. We were a practicing community for years before we described ourselves to people as an “intentional community” and, in the late 1970s, we gathered regularly with other Chicago area communities to learn about what it was to be Christian and communal. We actually learned about the Internal Revenue Code we use at JPUSA FGM, 501(D), from these groups. It is important to know that when many of our members who are now in leadership at JPUSA first arrived, they felt rootless, and couldn’t see settling down into one place for a given length of time with anyone. In the 1970s there was a lot of talk about society being fractured and there being little hope for families as social units. As the 70’s burned out and the 80’s moved in many Jesus communes shut down. Many ministries restructured into other entities that didn’t involve living together so closely. The fact that we still live in one building certainly doesn’t mean that we are somehow more heroic or more spiritual. We’ve had to learn to be flexible and accommodating as things changed over the years. But our reason for still being here is Jesus Christ. We know there’s no other reason to be living like this. Many people can’t seem to understand our community. They want to romanticize it. Others demonize it and are sure that, despite all the good we do for people, there must be a screw loose in there. Still others believe in community on a small scale, where a few families live together and pool resources or where individuals live in a house setting. We spent fifteen years renovating a ten story hotel as a home on Wilson Avenue in Uptown. We certainly don’t want people to think they need to live like us to be good Christians. One thing I won’t be quiet about is that people are worth investing in. We could read and talk all day about love, but real love should be vi seen in changed lives. When I can see the change in people I know God is at work. This takes time, and that’s why I’m in it for the long haul. You’ll notice in this book that after some of the chapters I include an excerpt from the Mission Improbable Handbook. This is a workbook that I’ve been using in my seminars and with individuals to spread the vision of mission business on a personal level. It is for people who are ready for hands on involvement in testing their own ideas for a mission business. If you’d like a copy of this book, or want to dialogue about what you’ve read, you may contact me through the Nehemiah Challenge website or email. http://nehemiahchallenge.com/blog or [email protected]

Tim Bock Lakefront Supply 2950 N Western Ave Chicago, IL 60618

vii

Raising the Roof at CCO, October, 2007

viii

1 A LIFE IN MISSION BUSINESS

How a Mission Business Happens

t was 6:00 AM on Saturday morning. Our Lakefront Supply stick crane had just set up on the five story 12,000 square foot roof of the homeless shelter. I was getting on the roof when my number Ione commercial sales guy yelled out to me, “It’s 26" deep!” I said “You mean 2.6” right?” “NO,” he said, “I mean 26” thick!” We were about to start tearing off this roof. “Let’s hope it does not rain,” I said. Lakefront Supply hosted a “raise the roof month” in 2007. For six Saturdays we rallied employees, vendors, customers, and shelter clients to tear off an old leaky roof on one of the three shelter buildings at Cornerstone Community Outreach. Business can be about more than just making money. I think it’s very rare that a homeless shelter gets its old roof replaced for free. I know that many people feel like the work they do isn’t fulfilling, in part because it doesn’t even begin to cover their basic needs. I’m fascinated with the way God wanted work to play a very important function in people’s lives in the Old Testament. (See Leviticus 19:9-18) Remembering the poor and caring for the land itself were tightly integrated into what it meant to be God’s people. A recent work/pay ratio illustrates how different things are from what God intends for human beings. Back in 1965 the average US worker made $7.52 an hour while the average executive made $330.38 per hour, but over the last 20 years the average worker’s wage has slumped to $7.39 per hour while the average CEO wage has skyrocketed to $1,566.68 per hour. The 1

richest (20%) own 80% of the resources while the poorest (20%) own 1.4%.1 The rich are getting richer and the poor are. . . well, you know the rest. How can work for pay find a more meaningful place?

The JPUSA Family in 1978 at Montrose Hill

How can business be a mission? Unless the Lord builds the House is the story of a group of Christ-followers that have pooled their resources, starting businesses to help their neighbors get on their feet. We are learning how to use business to serve people, as a means for living out both the Great Commission and the call to feed, clothe, and visit “the least of these.”2 These businesses are all managed by the members of Jesus People USA FGM, and, after expenses, all profits go to fund their missions. I joined JPUSA in 1978 right from the University of Arkansas with ideals to clothe the needy and feed the poor. As an entrepreneur, I was recognized and encouraged to be part of the business enterprises. I learned that my gifts in the marketplace could be used for direct ministry. The heart of this book is simple: to look at business as a mission. To help business people see their work as part of God’s great plan. It is also to help missionaries see business as a viable and worthy way to further their work, and not be ashamed of the entrepreneurial spirit

1 See Another World Is Possible, DVD, #2, and Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an ordinary radical, Zondervan, 2006, pg. 141 2 More on this in chapter Five, Direct Ministry, pg. 87 2 given by God. Focusing on the whole person, including the economic reality, is not wrong. I believe that when you break down business it is all about relationships. In the last forty-three years, we’ve gained a lot of experience with startup businesses (thirty of

Dinner at Paulina them) in different professions. We’ve always used these to build and foster community with the poor in Uptown Chicago. Over the years many people have asked me to clarify my call to JPUSA. I feel so blessed to be a part of this “experience of God,” something so much greater than myself. So what makes me tick? When I met the Lord in 1976 at the University of Arkansas, business was the farthest thing from my mind. I was an idealist and wanted to help start a home for juvenile delinquents and begin saving the world. I envisioned bringing troubled kids from the big cities out to a rural setting in the woods of southern Arkansas to help them adjust to a simple life. That is why I was drawn to the ministry of Teen Challenge. I spent some time in the Arkansas Teen Challenge home and loved it. I then visited the Chicago chapter for a night and saw all the programs there.

Since my family lived in Chicago, I thought I would spend the night with the hippie Jesus People community to see what their ministry was all about. Something touched my soul and my spirit there that I did not understand. On the outside, I was struggling with the long hair and the fact that they all liked rock and roll. I was a kid from Park Ridge Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, home to people such as

A JP Roofing 'Tear Off'

Hillary Rodham Clinton. Actually, Hillary babysat me and my four sisters. We lived right across the street from her family.

In 1978 I felt God’s call to go to Jesus People. The Lord was prompting me to move by faith. So I packed my green VW bug with all my earthly belongings. When I parked the car in front of 4426 N. Paulina St., JPUSA headquarters at the time, the Lord impressed on me: “This is your home and these are your people.” So even though I was not sure what that meant, I moved in by faith, still thinking my call was to help teenagers directly. When I arrived I was encouraged to start by simply being in the ministry and doing what was needed at that time. I was to rethink some of the thoughts that I had on

First Lakefront Supply at 939 W Wilson Ave leadership. This was a precious time, as I look back, growing to be a leader. My journey to ministry/business led me to follow first from the heart. After I joined JPUSA, I became a painter because that is where the need was at the time. I was a painter in college and started a two man crew to help support my schooling. As I learned to serve and submit, I was being formed into a leader. A vision started stirring in my heart in 1981. We were painting the top floor of an apartment building and I saw a stain on the ceiling. The owner said “I just had the roof done so call this guy if the stain comes back.” It did come back, and I called the roofer and he walked

5 me up on the roof. It looked white like acrylic paint. (It was actually roof coating.) This got me all excited about roofing. I went to the pastors and said, “We paint walls, I think we could paint roofs. Let me learn how to do it. I’d like to learn. And they said, “Go for it.” So we started JP Roofing, and it became one of the most successful things we did up to that point in contracting. I entered into my first marriage at this time. JP Roofing became a full system roofing company, and we learned it all by the seat of our pants. Our sales hit nearly $1 million in 1984. Those early years were marked by great camaraderie; everyone available put their hand to the task. We were working and playing hard, including a lot of joking and roughhousing. Some days ended with one of the guys in the dumpster. As roofers, we saw the need for a supply company that would help small companies, as we had been in the beginning of our company. Because we did not know much, we were treated with disdain by one of the local suppliers. We thought, “If we ever become a supplier, we will honor the small guy.” We bought a building for our growing roofing company. Since it was a larger commercial building, the thought came back even stronger: “We could have a supply business in this building.” I received encouragement from our leadership once again to “Go for it”. We started Lakefront Supply in 1985, knowing what roofers wanted— especially the struggling ones. We found out that there were many such roofers in our area; we truly were not alone. We focused on training roofers in products, information and correct installation. We had learned the hard way and now, as a supplier, wanted to share our knowledge. We tried to be ethical and fair to all, especially the “small guy.” I became the proud dad of my first daughter Emily in 1986. She was the first apple of my eye, curly haired and full of life. She was daddy’s little girl and I always had a blast being with her. We decided to get a metal shop going so that Lakefront could be a one stop shop. When we were contracting, we had to go to three different places to get all our supplies: a sheet metal shop, a propane store and a roofing supplier. Many years prior an older JPUSA member, an all around fix-it man, Frank, had fabricated roofing gutters, scuppers and flashings. I asked if he would like to come out 6

of semi-retirement to help us get a shop going. He was excited to do this, so working with one of our neighbors who needed a job, they began fabricating all the products. We were very practical about the products that we brought in to sell because we knew roofing and what our customers needed. Our training classes in 1988 were held every Sunday after church on our own roof. We had such a patchwork of good, better and horrible applications, but because it was hands-on training, the contractors came to know us and recognized that we were sincere and helpful. Our sales grew. A few years later we had opened our first satellite location on the north side of Chicago, trying to capture the market in

Elanor, Isaac and Emily Bock

the northern suburbs. Our main store remained the centralized location for all purchasing, book keeping and dispatching of loads. In 1990 my twins Elanor and Isaac were born prematurely, but very healthy. The dream of a big family was beginning to happen. It is such a blessing and quite a load to have two at once. One of them

7 was always waking the other each night. Twin parents basically have to give up sleep for one year, but it’s all worth it. In 1992 my wife of eleven years left me. Her desire to start a new

First trip to Romania life made her move on. My three little angels and I refocused our lives together. At this time of brokenness, a Romanian roofer came to me to ask if I could help him start a business in Romania that would supply the money for Christians to help the neediest there. Many trips to Romania and a simple market study proved the need for a roofing supply house there focused on western style products. (More details in Chapter 7.)

In 1994 NARCOM, a construction supply company, opened in Constantia, Romania. One of the Lakefront managers and his family

moved to Romania so he could mentor our Romanian manager in all aspects of a distribution mission-business.

I asked God if I would ever marry again. He answered my prayer. The woman of my dreams came into my life to walk alongside me and my children. Aracely and I got married in 1994 and started our journey together as a family. My wife and I have learned much about love, courage, and hope together.

In 1996 the general manager of NARCOM, Adrian Olario, having returned a successful profit from the company, was able to fulfill his dream of opening a nonprofit called OSANA foundation. OSANA built and ran two AIDS kids homes and helped neglected senior

The Bock Wedding citizens and poor families. Adrian knew what the greatest needs were in his country.

In 1997 my fourth child, and Aracely’s firstborn son, Joshua, was born and we now have two boys and two girls. What a joy to see us

The Bock Family grow together as a family. Joshua brought incredible joy and peace to us all.

We opened another satellite location on the south side of Chicago, trying to service the Hispanic market. Randy Johnson, a missionary from Nicaragua, joined the community and he managed this location for years. The day before 9/11/01, I started serving on the board of World In Need, USA. This ministry’s primary goal is to share Christ’s love to Muslims all over the world. This was an incredible time of getting to know current affairs in outreaches to the Muslim world. In 2002 I was asked by a World Mission missionary from Bangkok, Thailand, and a South African pastor to “help start a business for our missions.” I wrote Mission Improbable. The Asia director of World Mission, Dave Husby asked me to go to Thailand, Laos and the Philippines to tour the booklet and visit missionaries. We were trying to help them develop mission businesses and support what they were already doing on their mission field.

Dave Husby, Carl and Karen Groot in Bangkok. Carl and Karen started a hand made bag business to support their ministry that is still going strong today.

At our main Lakefront location we had approximately 30,000 square feet of vacant space. In 2003 we had been seeking a tenant for many months without success. Another member of the community and I started a 350-unit self-storage business called Riverview Self Storage. In three years this company would already turn a profit. In 2004 I was asked to serve on the seven member JPUSA pastoral council. Serving on the council had been a desire of my heart from the time I joined the community. I am greatly honored to serve in this way. In 2005, the OSANA Foundation, supported by the 10-year-old NARCOM and managed by Adrian Olaria, was approached by Gilead Ministries of England to start a joint project, Gilead Romania, to assist in the rehabilitation of drug and alcohol abusers (see chapter 7). Gilead will operate a dairy farm to serve the community, to provide work therapy for those in rehab and to provide job training for needy teenagers. I was asked to serve on the board of Gilead Romania to help bring community to the mission-business. The plan is for three HIV-positive teenagers from the orphanage started by OSANA to work there. The Gilead Romania program will give these teenagers a skill to live by. 11

Gilead Farm Romania

In 2006, in an effort to keep Lakefront growing as the main support of JPUSA, we opened two more locations, one in Waukegan Illinois, and another in Schererville, Indiana. Since Riverview Self-Storage has proven successful, we are now adding self-storage in each new Lakefront location, using the same staff to operate both the Lakefront and the storage business. We each have a different story of why we came to JPUSA, but the common thread is that we all obeyed a call to serve Jesus and to live a simple communal life in the inner city of Chicago. My heart when I first met the Lord, was to minister to broken kids at Teen Challenge. This has never left me. I know my greatest focus in business is the people who work alongside me as employees, customers and suppliers. I know I am a missionary in the marketplace.

The Mission As of January 2017, JPUSA number 260 people composed of 70 couples, 50 kids, 50 singles as well as 10-20 people from overseas who are visiting us. We live in a renovated hotel in a multicultural, diverse, and needy, rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on the north 12

side of Chicago called Uptown (about four blocks from Lake Michigan). A four flat apartment building behind this main building

920 W Wilson Ave “The House” at JPUSA Exterior

houses single brothers and youth groups of up to thirty people who come to visit and serve within some of our ministries during the year.

We operate 7 businesses, the following three of which provide the lion’s share of the funds needed to support the JPUSA community:

• Lakefront Roofing and Siding Supply had 6 locations: 3 in the inner city of Chicago, 1 near Wisconsin and 1 in Indiana as well as one supply house in Romania • Friendly Towers, a low-income housing program serving 100 seniors • Belly Acres, a t-shirt printing business serving mostly Christian bands

All the profits from the companies go directly into the common purse of JPUSA and meet all the needs of the community. Each couple lives in a single room with a bathroom. The children live in their own rooms near their parents rooms. Each floor has two common living rooms and a nice kitchen that allows for the cooking of a special meal from time to time. Normally though, we all eat together in a common dining room. We have our own school, Uptown Christian School that goes from preschool through high

920 W Wilson Ave “The House” at JPUSA Interior school. This is a school for our own kids, but every so often we will take in kids that we get to know from the neighborhood. Ministry to the poor and needy is one of the most important parts of our outreach in Chicago. We run five shelter programs in two buildings about four blocks away from our house. Every night we house over 350 people, including homeless families, men, women with children and single women. We serve dinner to over 200 homeless people once a week and give out food bags once a week. Music and the arts are a big focus at JPUSA also. Each year we pooled all our talents to put on Cornerstone Festival, a five day camping event, with an attendance of 20,000 people in its apex. It 14

had art programs, kids programs, seminar speakers, and an average of 300 bands.

Mainstage at Cornerstone Festival

It ended in 2012 due to the tough economic times and the increase of other competing festivals.

We refocused our attention now on our community center at 939 W. Wilson, across the street from where we live. It houses our school, a recording studio, a 500 seat auditorium, a large coffee shop called Everybody’s with an attached theater. We rent to groups, churches and local organizations as well as have our Sunday outreach church service.

The Jesus People Traveling Team in 1972

2 SHARE & LIVE SIMPLY

Choose to Share and Live Simply

esus People USA began as an extension of the early 1970’s Jesus Movement when a group of committed young Christians in JMilwaukee split up into three groups. One group went to Europe

Jesus People bus as a theater group. The second group became a traveling tent team, conducting tent revivals all throughout the USA. The third group, called Jesus People USA traveling team, then had 25 members who would become the present day JPUSA. They 17 traveled around the country in an old, red school bus with “Jesus” painted in big white letters on both sides. They presented the Gospel through music and drama, bringing many to Christ. The group

Worshiping together at Faith Tabernacle in 1974 consisted of a radical “rock and roll for Jesus” band that handed out a “Jesus Paper” called Cornerstone everywhere they traveled.

The Jesus People USA traveling team needed a headquarters. Down in Gainesville Florida, where many of the original team had family, they were finding less of an audience for their concerts. A couple from Aurora, Illinois approached the team about joining them. The group would visit them when they were in the area. Faith Tabernacle on Halsted in Chicago had welcomed JP Milwaukee in the past, and offered their basement as a place to stay. The city of Chicago offered better booking contacts, study resources for Cornerstone Magazine, and finally somewhere to be settled from road weariness.

Boarding the bus in the parking lot at Faith Tabernacle in 1974

Two years later JPUSA was still living in the basement of “Faith Tab.” Although the pastor saw great things happening, with many young people coming into a real knowledge of Christ, he started to get concerned that they would never leave. So, faced with having to move out of the church basement, the group started searching for another place to live.

Hanging in the front yard at Paulina

Early Jesus People Businesses As the size of the group grew their need for money to support them grew in kind. Up to this point the primary means of support came from handing out the Cornerstone paper on the street. When they got donations they bought food; when they did not, they fasted and prayed. At the same time, someone at Faith Tabernacle needed some painting done. Another member needed a wall built out of 2 x 4’s in his house. This was the beginning of “Jesus People Contractors” and “Jesus People Painters,” who could handle almost any painting or construction job. As our ministry grew, so did the needs. As men and women came to us with specific skills, we started getting more specialty contracting businesses: “The Window People,” “The Porch People,” “JP Drywall,” “JP Roofing” and “JP Electrical,” just to name a few. These businesses were also great places to disciple our own members “on the job” in basic life skills as well as teaching them more about the trade they were in. As the business started to make money, God provided the first JPUSA building, a six flat on Paulina Street in Uptown Chicago, a very poor and needy area. I joined at this time, in 1978. These Jesus People pooled all their resources together as described in Acts, chapter 4. They grew in number, many of them just saved and many more seeing Jesus as the only reason to exist. There was a growing sense that Jesus People was not just an outreach team, but a community formed to help those God sent to live there and serve the needy. Yet changes were needed if the community were to be sustained at the rate it was growing. JPUSA’s businesses also began to grow in numbers and in profits as we saw the fruit of building our businesses on God’s values. We bought four buildings in the surrounding Uptown neighborhood to house the growing numbers of members joining the ministry. But soon the number of people grew too large for the buildings we had acquired. An old nursing home on Malden Avenue became available; this was in a rougher part of Uptown. We sold the four buildings we had to purchase it, and through the years purchased another four buildings in the same neighborhood. 20

4707 N. Malden JPUSA 1980-1991

We began to be too spread out, and had started to slip away from the original thoughts of “living and serving together.” In 1990, “The Chelsea Hotel,” an old 10-story classic hotel in Uptown, was being sold out of bankruptcy. It had failed plumbing, electrical and boilers (a perfect fit for a poor intentional community in Uptown). Miraculously, we acquired this building and called it “Friendly Towers” (the name of the first retirement home we had bought earlier). Over the years we have made it our home, the one place for us all to live together under one roof. JPUSA began having Bible studies as well as witnessing on the streets of Chicago in the evening. That made room to work in during the daytime. The mission-businesses became integrated and weaved into our lives. We started to disciple each other on the job as well as sharing Christ in the marketplace. JPUSA gradually redefined itself, without long term plans, responding a step at a time, letting God open and close doors. Doing business became as clear and central a part of our identity as direct outreach.

Friendly Towers, Chelsea Hotel, 1991-present

The mission-businesses became integrated and weaved into our lives.

JPUSA was essentially a small town with all the implied “municipal” expenditures. In addition, we operate an ever-growing variety of direct ministries, all of which do not produce income and need support. Our income-generating workforce of approximately 100 JPUSA members cannot keep pace with the growth, and that prompted us to hire outside employees through REM, our separately incorporated human resource division. REM was created to service our existing businesses by supplying workers and managers, but it also helps our JPUSA workers focus more time on direct ministry. 22

Our first big job with JP Roofing

What evolved, though, was a beautiful mix that helps our direct ministry also; our businesses have hired people from our shelter and second-stage housing program as well as from Safer Foundation, an agency focusing on employing ex-offenders. In all this we realized we have a heart to disciple our paid staff and often found they deepened

Tim and a visiting pastor from South Africa their commitments to Christ or met Him for the first time through mingling with JPUSAs every day.

Lessons from L’Arche Community and Growth, by Jean Vanier, is a gem of a book; it speaks to the heart of intentional communities. This book had become somewhat of a blue print for JPUSA throughout the years.

Jean Vanier’s example of serving the poor in spirit and in life has helped us keep our eyes on Jesus as we tried to live together in community. In 1964, Vanier, formerly a Canadian naval officer who had become a doctor of philosophy and was teaching in Toronto, saw that all his gifts could not bear fruit until he simply started to serve the neediest people put on his path by God. So, encouraged by others, and he invited three mentally and physically handicapped men (Raphael, Phillipe, and Dany) from an asylum into his home to care for them. With these men and a helper, Louis Pretty, he started to live and serve in community. In this way, Jean Vanier founded the first L’ Arche community at Trosley-Breuil in France for the mentally disabled. L’ Arche, now a worldwide network, arose from a very humble beginning. This experience revealed to Jean that living communally was a way of life that could help change the way we look at the most neglected and needy in the world. And if we love and care for them, we would begin to experience healing in our own souls and the new life God wants us to live simply and intentionally together. The first edition of Community and Growth, was written by Jean Vanier 14 years after he first started L’ Arche communities. In 2006 he visited JPUSA and spoke to us from his heart of serving in community now for 42 years and still going strong. Community and Growth has greatly influenced the way we live and serve. Here are some of the themes within Vanier’s book Community and Growth that have guided us over the years.

Belonging: We’re all in this Together

“The community is only truly a body when the majority of its members is making the transition from ‘the community for myself’ to ‘myself for the community’, when each person’s heart is opening to all others, without any exception. This is the movement from egoism to love, from death to resurrection; it is the Easter, a passage, the Passover of the Lord. It is

also the passing from a land of slavery to a promised land, the land of inner freedom.” 3

Intentional communities are often misunderstood by our culture. Cults, sects, and secluded groups seem to stick in the public imagination. We’ve found that, far from being a place to hide from the world, community is an opportunity to broaden and deepen our interaction with it. Our leadership is committed to Jesus’ call for “the least of these” (Matthew 25). Identifying with and caring for our neighbors in Uptown has kept us sound, healthy, and outwardly focused on the road of life. Community is all about belonging to something bigger than you. It focuses on forgiveness being the heart of community, needing to share your weaknesses, being patient with all God brings to the community and using your gifts that were especially given to you to serve people. When I came to the community my friends at school and in Pine Bluff Arkansas were still very close to my heart. I was writing them regularly during that first year or so, halfway with the intent of documenting my experiences so that we could start our own community. That winter of 1978-79 recorded 89.7 inches of snow over a three month period! The roads did not get plowed and city transportation shut down. We all went out on our street, Paulina, with pick axes and tree planting spades and shoveled out the entire block, getting our neighbor’s cars as well as ours unstuck. We had our JESUS bus drive down Ashland avenue to the bus stops, picking people up, singing Christian songs as we got them to their jobs. We kept this up for many days. I was reliving these experiences in letters to my friends back in Arkansas. I would write: “You wouldn’t believe what we did today, we became the only bus running on a major street in Chicago.” Or “We witnessed down town on Rush Street tonight and quite a few came to the Lord. I was the bus driver. Can you believe it? On the way home, it had started to rain, the roads were quite slippery. The cars ahead of us stopped cold and I swerved to the right and then to

3 Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, Revised Edition, Paulist, 1989, pgs. 55- 56 26

Shoveling out the Paulina neighborhood in 1978 the left, no one got hurt and we didn’t hit anyone! I was scared but realized that this was angels protecting us all.”

With each letter, I got more and more detailed in my picture of what was going on with me and the Jesus People. After a while, I noticed that I was writing less and less. My tie was loosening to my past and the friends I had then. I started to ask “What is God after with ME here? Is He after me in these experiences or am I supposed to just keep posting letters to my friends so that they can get a taste of Community?” This thought finally dawned on me: “I am supposed to live the experience for me and not them.” The greatest things I had experienced were not for anyone else particularly. These experiences were meant to soak into me so that I would invest myself in the people God had placed me

27 with. My heart opened up to the fact that “these are my people and this is my family.”

Called to Be Together

“There is often an act of faith at the basis of commitment to community—a belief that we will be reborn there. When we live alone or in our families, we build our identity on professional success, the way we use our leisure, and the joys of family life. Community doesn’t always— and certainly not straight away—bring the same satisfaction and sense of identity. So we feel we have lost a bit of ourselves. We can only accept this amputation if we are carried by the community and in prayer. We have to know how to wait patiently for the moment of rebirth. The grain of wheat must die before new life can appear. The road can be long and the nights dark; we have to wait for the dawn.” 4

To us community is about being called to a particular life style of sharing and caring. Only those who have been specifically called to serve will be able to care for the ones God gives us.

Growth

“The more a community grows and puts down roots, the more it must discover its own deep meaning and own philosophy of life, which cannot be cut off from the fundamental questions of the world and of the Church. The more it lives authentic human relationships, and the more it becomes a place to live in rather than a gathering of ‘doers’, the more it must find answers to the fundamental questions of human life.” 5

Growth is connected to getting out of our comfort zone. The Lord is pressing upon us to reach out in times where we may not feel like reaching out because growth is connected to being with others. “Life is not about being comfortable.” Growth always comes in the leap of

4 Ibid, pg. 75 5 Ibid, pg. 112 28

faith, stepping out. We would like to live a life of privacy and we feel we were promised a life where we could have things our way. However, when we live a life of getting our way we miss the opportunity to engage with others who need our help and we miss the opportunity to meet people who may be able to help us.

Bread

“If we are in community only to ‘do things’, its daily life will not nourish us; we will be constantly thinking ahead, because we can always find something urgent to be done. If we live in a poor neighborhood or with people in distress, we are constantly challenged. Daily life is only nourishing when we have discovered the wisdom of the present moment and the presence of God in small things. It is only nourishing when we have given up fighting reality and accept it, discovering the message and gift of the moment.” 6

Community is about seeing God as the only provider for the community, even though we work and serve, having the “eyes of the poor,” needing time to grow in our trust and service to each other. Because we live in a poor neighborhood, many times we are asked by our neighbors for money outside our front door. We have the chance to see the face of Jesus every day. Our daily response reveals the nature of our hearts at the moment.

Diversity of People, Diversity of Gifts

“Community brings together people of very different temperaments. Some are organized, quick, precise and efficient; they tend to be defensive and legalistic. Others are open, flexible and love personal contact; they are less efficient—to say the least! Others are shy and tend to become depressed and pessimistic. Others again are extrovert, optimistic, and even a bit exalted. God calls all these opposites together to create the wealth of the community. It may not be very easy at first. But gradually

6 Ibid, pg. 170 29

we discover what a richness it is to live with such a diversity of people, and such diversity of gifts.” 7

When we enter into community the Lord will call on us to start recognizing the gifts with which we’ll serve. For example, a young man may think that he’s only a gifted musician. Entering into community means this young man should be willing to learn about new gifts he didn’t know he had, like listening, discernment, and availability. It would be a mistake for him to be rigid in what he feels is his “real gift” in community. That might make him feel like there is no space for him. In Western culture historically there has been an emphasis on performance, competition, and individual growth. In community success is measured mostly in terms of the quality of our relationships, rather than job performance.

Welcoming

“To welcome is one of the signs of true human and Christian maturity. It is not only to open one’s door and one’s home to someone. It is to give space to someone in one’s heart, space for that person to be and to grow; space where the person knows that he or she is accepted just as they are, with their wounds and their gifts. That implies the existence of a quiet and peaceful place in the heart where people can find a resting place. If the heart is not peaceful, it cannot welcome.” 8

Community is about welcoming the vulnerable and weak and taking the risk of hospitality. At the heart of all healthy communities is the richness of welcoming all who will come to visit and serve. The whole community must have a heart of welcome, not just those entrusted with the responsibility.

7 Ibid, pg. 251-252 8 Ibid, pg. 265 30

In community success is measured mostly in terms of the quality of our relationships, rather than job performance.

If we are functioning well, we tend to forget that we are still in need of welcome also. In welcoming others each of us will remember that we were once welcomed. We continue to be so in our everyday engagement with others. Community extends us welcome and a place to share our hearts, minds, and souls among friends and loved ones. There are many people at JPUSA whose jobs directly involve this call to welcome. The Men’s and Women’s Coordinators have offices in the first floor of “The House” that serve specifically to welcome and initiate new people, men and women, single and married, into the way we live and work together. The Youth Group coordinators schedule short term mission visits from churches all over the United States. At our homeless shelters leaders are regularly called upon to welcome and initiate volunteers, many of whom have never seen a shelter before. These volunteers often find that they themselves are more weak and vulnerable than they realized! They are initiated into a new perspective on life, wherein the poor are guests with gifts to share with them! Over the years, two of our pastors have especially welcomed and cared for all the brothers who come to serve. A new brother with a past in the gang scene stumbled with drugs, but got a second chance to get things right. We all are in desperate need of second chances in different areas of our lives. Co-workers and leaders must be willing to

extend the second chance to others as they themselves are receiving grace and forgiveness.

Meetings

“Community life implies a personal commitment which is made real in meetings between people. But we are very quick to flee from these meetings. They frighten us, just because they commit us. We flee into administration, law, rules, the search for ‘objective truth’; we flee into work and activity. We flee from meeting people; we would rather do things for them. But if we are to love, we have to meet.” 9

Community is about coming together daily to share our lives with each other and be of the same mind and spirit. Our meetings are to bring encouragement and to keep the vision of the community alive. Each day we are together is a testimony of the wonder of God’s call to us to live together for His purposes. There’s a big difference between writing someone an email and encountering them face to face. To shake someone’s hand and sit with them and really listen to their particular challenge and share of myself, is one of my greatest joys.

Celebration

“Celebration is nourishment and resource. It makes present the goals of the community in symbolic form, and so brings hope and a new strength to take up again everyday life with more love. Celebration is a sign of the resurrection which gives us strength to carry the cross of each day. There is an intimate bond between celebration and the cross.” 10

At Jesus People we’ve always had a focus on celebration. We love coming together and planning big events. We love eating and listening to music and playing games. In the past years we have had all these elements come together for one big Fest a year. Every Easter

9 Ibid, pg. 284 10 Ibid, pg. 315 32 we celebrate what we call Fest-4-Us. It’s a rich time of focusing on the Lord together and being together as families celebrating community. Every element of a celebration is there, good teachings, good food, and games for the kids, good music, and good fellowship. On the last night we end with a big community dinner and show with both goofy awards and serious recognition of jobs well done. This event takes a lot of effort to plan and pull together. There are groups in our community who work for weeks to get it just right. It is important to the community and therefore worth all the effort.

Serving in the Fruits of the Spirit

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.“ (Gal. 5:16-22, NRSV)

Because our emphasis and calling as a community has always been about relationships, we have felt that looking at the fruits of the Spirit in a person has been more important than looking at their gifting. As we have watched each other grow over the years, we have seen this become increasingly more important. How we look at each other and how well we get along as human beings is a more valuable long term gift than how good we are at an actual skill. Leadership must have its

33 focus in team building and relationships. Therefore living in the Spirit is most important. Living in the Spirit means that we walk by the Holy Spirit and we do not fulfill the demands and desires of our flesh. Some of the areas where we see definite application of Holy Spirit Truth are: Not Being Conceited: to be prideful is altogether bad for leadership. No matter what your gifts are, they will be spoiled by a heart eaten up by pride. We must examine ourselves. Pride is one of the most deadly sins in any community in western society today. It destroys relationships in businesses as well as in the church. Provoking or backbiting is a sign of a lack of self-confidence and weakness. There is no room for that within a Kingdom community. We must all work to get rid of it. Envy or jealousy is like a rotten root that spreads its disease throughout the whole tree. They eat away joy and team spirit. There is only one way out. When envy or jealousy shows its face it should

A typical JPUSA style young couple’s room be brought into the light. It is the enemy corrupting fellowship in Christ.

Maturity is the ability to walk in forgiveness with our close living neighbors. Being a leader means to be willing continuously to be the one who forgives and moves on. Servant leadership moves from

being just a glamorous term to being an everyday interactive commitment. For instance, it takes self-control to be kind and patient to very different kinds of people at all levels of maturity in such densely populated living conditions. This means people who you have not chosen to live with! This self-control helps us in our daily dealings with the poor in our neighborhood and at our shelters. In the community we feel called to keep to a simple standard of living in small and simple quarters. This helps us live simply. We live together as a community, bearing each other’s burdens faithfully. We see people going through breakups and occasional divorces who need for us to care for them and to be their family. Life is messy and community is not about having things look good, but about having the faith to grow together through difficult circumstances.

New women in our ministry are cared for by a group of older, mature women who have constantly gone the extra mile with kindness, especially for the most troubled. Cornerstone Magazine was our printed voice for over 30 years. It was managed by one of our pastors who painstakingly made sure each article and art piece showed the heart of JPUSA. When our Sylvia Center started and needed a president, she and her husband demonstrated faithfulness by moving into a spare room in the shelter to be a presence to the homeless, so they would know we are always there. Our three Friendly Towers managers, together with other caseworkers who are JPUSA members, demonstrate goodness as they take in seniors who are low income and help them receive their benefits. The Chicago Department of Human Services will frequently call with the names of seniors who are homeless and in need of housing. We know those who live with us by name. Some of them suffer mental illness due to years of substance abuse. Brothers and sisters will patiently listen to them and eat a meal with them. The fruit of the Spirit is listed in direct contrast to the works of the flesh. Where the works of the flesh destroy fellowship and keep us from our place in the kingdom of God, the fruit of the Spirit is relational; it draws us together and binds us to God. The Holy Spirit demonstrates in us the love and interrelation that God has within the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit possess all the fruit we could ever need, and the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, come from our belonging together.

3 MISSION-BUSINESS

What is Christ Centered Mission Business?

ecoming a self-supporting ministry was God’s call on our ministry. As more people came to live with us through our ministry of loving them, it became obvious that “the donations”B from passing out Cornerstone Magazine were not enough by far to sustain the numbers of people. And so the community and the various direct ministries of JPUSA began to be supported by mission-businesses or “tent-making” enterprises. Due to the types of people coming to live and serve with us, it was practical that the discipleship should take place while being “on the job.” Contracting type businesses worked well by making “apprentices” of the younger brothers and sisters. We found that the newly arrived teenagers were lacking basic skills, like the ability to work together as a team and even getting up in the morning. Most of them would grow immensely by simply getting coached to do a daily task. Since the beginning we have considered our businesses just as much ministry as any of our other outreach efforts. Many Christians in business today sees this and are bolder in talking about Christ at work and helping people in their businesses. For JPUSA establishing businesses was never a goal in and of itself. We pulled our values from community into the businesses with us, focusing on the people and secondarily on the trade.

In supporting the community our businesses: • Bring care for all workers; • Provide daily discipleship as we labor together; • Inviting the people who come to JPUSA to use the gifts they have; • Share the vision, that we are truly missionaries in the marketplace; • Recognize eternal significance no matter what we do.

A Christian mission-business has different priorities than a typical for-profit business. It does not mean that all workers and/or managers are Christians. It does mean that all workers and managers accept and support the mission of the business, in that they see themselves as a part of something bigger than themselves, as well as supporting direct ministry. Business can be one of the best platforms for ministry. We must look at our everyday work as an extension of our faith.

Some Thoughts for Missionaries Direct Ministry must be supported somehow. The most common way is by tithing or by putting on special events to make money. JPUSA has never focused on fundraising. In fact, approximately 3% of our money comes from outside donations. Most mission organizations devote considerable resources to raising money. This in turn can cause conflict between the organization and the missionary. The missionaries have a passion to serve in the field of their call, but yet need to come back home to fight for the already tight resources of churches and organizations. Most missionaries prefer to invest their energies into sinking roots in the communities they are called to serve. On their “home-stays,” they would love to come home, rest as a family and share their life stories, rather than having to worry about raising support. All missionaries are entrepreneurs, I believe. We would not boldly take ourselves and our family out of the comfort zone of life at home to share Christ if we did not have the gift of entrepreneurship (ability to grasp a vision that may entail walking on yet unknown ground and run with it). A challenge then to all missionaries is to learn business principles so our spiritual gifts can extend to business for the holistic approach to our work. Most missionaries are concerned that they will become so absorbed in “businesses” that their remaining time for “ministry” will be sacrificed. When someone starts a business, he or she practically needs to eat, drink and sleep in the enterprise to make it work.

Lakefront stick crane

Direct ministry must see the importance of being in the marketplace. As we accepted the challenge to disciple the growing number of people coming to serve at JPUSA, we saw the need to have a practical, work-oriented way for us to live out our “discipleship training school.”

This “school” started with the foundation of reading books like The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Road to Calvary by Roy Hession, as well as nightly Bible studies. The day was made up of on-the-job training and spiritual formation. (See Appendix A in the back of this book for a chart to help you navigate through this amazing story of grace.) Doing business as a mission demands you do an excellent job. The results of doing business as a mission kept our people focused on the real meaning of work: to disciple and care for each other in sharing Christ while we were laboring together and trying to do an excellent job. Our crews have become known as people who cared deeply about doing the job right. That has always been our goal (even

Lakefront warehouse view though in the beginning we had to do the jobs a few times before we got them right).

Belly Acres Mission-Businesses JPUSA mission-businesses are mostly staffed by non-salaried community members. Most of the adults in JPUSA serve either in direct ministry or in our mission-businesses. The income from our businesses pays our room and board as well as all of our operational expenses. Our businesses include:

Lakefront Roofing and Siding Supply, a wholesale company that sells to professional contractors – modified bitumen, shingles, siding, sheet metal and seamless aluminum and copper gutters.

• Opened in 1985 with 5 JPUSA workers. • Have had up to 6 locations (3 in Chicago, 1 in Indiana, 1 near Wisconsin and lastly our Far East location: NARCOM in Romania). • We have a sheet metal shop fabricating custom copper, galvanized and aluminum products for the roofing industry as well as custom cornice work used all around Chicago and the suburbs. • 13 Delivery Trucks, Stick Cranes, Knuckle Cranes and Seamless Gutter trucks. • We currently have 2 locations, one south side of Chicago and our main HQ, west of downtown.

Belly Acres is a t-shirt printing company, which started in 1990

•Staffed by 9 JPUSA members •Prints t-shirts for bands, churches, schools, nonprofits, and a variety of businesses.

Friendly Towers Retirement Home, the seniors program

• Houses 100 seniors in the upper 3 floors of JPUSA’s 10- story community building. • Most of our seniors are on public aid; many come to us homeless and without contact to relatives. • Staffed by 15 JPUSA’s, doing casework, housekeeping and providing a variety of services.

Tone Zone Records, a recording studio

• Records some of Chicago’s blues bands and Gospel choirs as well as recording many of our own label bands. • Staffed by one fulltime JPUSA sound engineer. 43

• Started in 1982 when REZ Band got a three-album contract.

Citizen Skate Shop, a skate shop

• Located near our lobby, with an entrance to the street. • Run by JPUSA members. • Serves skaters who frequent the skate park just east of us on the Lakefront.

Seniors at Friendly Towers

Everybody’s Coffee

• Run by 10 JPUSA members • A cheery coffeehouse with long bar tables offering baked goods made on-site plus frequent art and concert events. • Located at our Community Center across the street at 939 W Wilson (where we started Lakefront Supply)

Zeppelin Design Labs

• Run by 2 JPUSA members • Quality DIY amps, cabs & combos for electric guitar, cigar box guitar, and harp (harmonica). Available as kit or pre-built.

Nehemiah USA - a mission-business focusing on developing countries whose goal is to:

• Provide employment opportunities in developing countries. • Support local missions in those countries. • Encourage Christian business values. • Allow individuals and businesses to participate in missions helping the needy. Nehemiah stopped in 2015.

NARCOM - a single subsidiary, in Constanta, Romania, which was a construction material distributor

NARCOM

• Opened in 1994. • Operated with all Romanian workforce. • Had 25 hired staff, some from a local Baptist Church. • Miraculously continued to exist, since inflation in Romania was extravagant. • Had trained over 100 people in various work and business enterprises using Godly ethics as a model and starting offshoot businesses coached by the local general manager of NARCOM. • Enabled general manager to open two homes for AIDS children and to start OSANA, a non-profit foundation. (See Chapter 7) • As of 2017 it has been stopped.

Roofers Equipment Mart (REM)– human resources division of JPUSA.

• Provides employees for JPUSA businesses, primarily Lakefront. • When possible, employs ex-offenders, the poor and homeless of Chicago.

Riverview Self Storage 46

Riverview Self Storage

• Started in the same building as the main Lakefront Roofing and Siding Supply. • Had over 350 units. • Staffed by 1 paid employee and 2 JPUSAs. • 2014 sold this company and we are now the landlords of the new company.

Using the Assets We Had All the mission-businesses we have run started because the members God brought us had certain skills and assets and/or certain opportunities were presented to us. • Tone Zone, our recording studio, started with a cash advancement given to REZ band for a three album contract. • Friendly Towers, our senior housing program, started when we bought our existing building. There were 90 seniors already living in the building and we wanted to see if we could care for them as well as live with them.

Working Together and Discipleship What we found was a practical mix of helping those who came to live with us while also making money for our financial support. Experienced brothers and sisters “apprenticed” the newer ones first in basic life skills, like showing up on time in the morning for breakfast and prayer.

We ate together, worshiped, and prayed, then split up into various jobs. As people learned how to get along with their teammates, they experienced growth in friendships, and together that became an important part of the on-the-job discipleship. Then as skills increased our specialty businesses grew.

We had a pastoral team giving spiritual direction in the business field. That kept our priorities focused rightly on Jesus and people first and then on profits. Those early days molded us into who we were to become in business and in missions. 47

Mission Business Stories from the Front Line

Our experience as managers of mission-businesses was a growing experience each step of the way, as we walked through the open doors and took baby steps. We thought small at first. Our community went through the same process: by taking small baby steps and thinking practically, we developed ministries and enterprises. There were many knocks and bruises along the way. Here are a few stories that capture the flavor of that time over the last forty years. You will see how ordinary we were and how God covered us with much grace. From a historical perspective, the stories also show that our direct ministries and mission-business growth have been more opportunistic than planned – from the beginning. We acted as the Lord opened and closed doors.

• JP Movers The moving business at JPUSA got its start when our members began helping Faith Tabernacle’s church members move. Once a 90 year-old woman called in the middle of the night. She asked for help because she had been evicted. One of our pastors said, “Sure, let’s get a crew together and move her.” We had already moved some folks here and there with a lone pick-up truck. A policeman stopped us and asked us what in the world we were doing. We told him, but he was under pressure from the other moving companies to stop us, so he gave our pastor a ticket. In court, the judge was incensed that we were moving without a license. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he said. “Well, sir, you caught us and we need to pay what we need to pay,” said our pastor. “But before we pay the fine, may I ask you something? What was in the truck when you stopped us?” “A dresser,” answered the policeman. “Sir, do you know that is all this lady had?” The judge told us to get out of his courtroom and get a license. This officially started the JP Movers.

• Carpentry A brother joined who had worked with his dad and had acquired some carpentry skills. We were working with what we had and letting God open and close doors. We started a carpentry enterprise, JP construction.

• Jesus People Construction This led us to many specialty companies such as: JP Electrical, JP Drywall, JP Windows, to the Porch People, a company that built those giant back porches in the Chicago area, year-around. Yes, even in the freezing winters of the Windy City. After a few years of this, the workers and managers got to thinking, “Are there warmer ways to do the same work?”

• Creative Wood Design Thus the start of Creative Wood Design (CWD) a custom deck company that worked in a WARM shop and produced the same deck material they did outside, now only inside and controlled. As the skill 49

of these workers grew, the company began building a new upscale line of custom cabinets.

• Seniors in Our Building The origin of our seniors mission-business is providential and awesome. We were growing out of our four buildings in the 4700 north blocks of Malden and Magnolia streets. By now 200 or more dinner guests were standing out front of our house every day. At the same time, many investors were buying up the properties in our neighborhood and turning them into expensive condominiums. We saw this as a time to seek another building. A 10-story building, an old hotel with over 400 rooms, was being auctioned; the owners were bankrupt. The hotel was located only five blocks east of us. At the auction we were the only bidders with a certified check in the packed courtroom. The judge sold us the building for the opening bid. The building was known as the Chelsea House hotel, a very exclusive hotel in the 1920’s. After we picked ourselves up off the floor in praise to Him, we took on the monster building, dreaming of the future when we would all be together again under one roof. There was just one problem though! The previous owner was running a retirement hotel in the building. Over 100 seniors in the most awful conditions: dangerous electrical, no plumbing in most rooms and no heat. We thought, “How could we kick the seniors out? Let’s take care of them.” So we renovated the top three floors first. They were in the best shape, and moved all the seniors who wanted to stay to the newly renovated rooms. We average around 100 seniors on the top three floors, and JPUSAs occupy 2nd through 7th floors. Intergenerational living is such a gift to us all.

• Learning from a hog farm On our spiritual journey we have always asked, “Should we, Lord?” We could do anything, but should we? Then as we walk into an opportunity, we leave the project in His hand, willing for God to take it if it will not work for His best. Many times He has taken our ideas away from us.

Like when we had a hog farmer join and deed over his farm. Our thought was that this could provide meat for us less expensively! After about 18 months we realized there were some unusual things going on with the farmer’s spending. I worked in the furrowing barn for many months, helping the piglets in their first weeks of life. He had purchased a new tractor and then ran out of grain before we even planted the crop for feed. Only then did we realize the farmer was bankrupt. We had lost cash and time, but learned the valuable lesson: city folks should stay with urban business. They do not have a clue what it takes to run a farm. We learned the hard way that we needed to find enterprises that fit in our areas of expertise, our location and our calling. Above all, we seek God for the details of mission-business life.

• From Painting to Roofing Our roofing crew started as an outside painting crew. They were painting a very large home in Hyde Park with a large pitched roof and a complicated roofline, including many valleys and a few dormers. A

51 painter missed a spot on one of these dormers, and he proceeded to climb up the valley to touch up this small miss. He put holes in the valley with every step he took. Yes, we fixed a roof on that one and learned how to roof valleys. Sometimes we simply were covering our mistakes, but through this, as in any business hopefully, you learn lessons for good. We grew as professionals and became known as the “Jesus Boys” who could do just about anything. When we got into roofing, we saw more miracles and times where we sensed God was truly with us. Within three years, we went from knowing absolutely nothing at all about roof systems to almost $1 million in sales. We hired people from our neighborhood, and many of them came to know the Lord through our example. Many workers we had trained eventually went into business for themselves.

• Tree Planting In the late 1970s, JPUSA needed more work during the winter. One of our pastors, Victor Williams, spearheaded a tree planting business, taking thirty to forty people (mostly singles, but also a few families) to many beautiful places across the nation, such as California, Oregon, Washington state, Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, Alabama, 52 and North Carolina. This venture lasted five years and in addition to providing income, was a source of great fellowship and camaraderie. Homemade saunas by the local creek were a must for the crew. Sometimes they got too hot.

• Competing Priorities The managers were trying to be more professional but our commitment to marketplace ministry and discipleship made it difficult. On one hand they were tasked to build sound and profitable companies, yet they were constantly getting men and women who “needed to be on the crew, and who were not doing well at the house.” Over time we saw many of the same workers grow into disciples and great workers, some of whom eventually led the crews on which they had begun working. Some left the community and had marketable skills to continue their lives elsewhere. Seeing the lives of the men and women I work with being made whole makes me tick. I was once asked at a Christian Community Development Association (CCDA, founded by John Perkins) conference, “What are the successes in your mission-business?” Immediately, my thoughts went to the men and women who struggled hard simply to come to work each day. They needed structure and a purpose; going to work every day helped bring normality to their lives. I saw many men and women turn into supervisors and managers of areas of Lakefront, our sheet metal shop and many other enterprises throughout the years.

• Serving People as Though Serving Christ A number of situations happened early in our history as a roofing company that showed customers we were for real. From the beginning we showed that we always would be ethical, representing Christ in the marketplace. This commitment has cost us much money, but it remains the key of our way to do business: serving people as though serving Christ. Once, just before a rainstorm, we had torn off this roof, not realizing that we would not be able to get it covered in time. It rained for three days straight, displacing the owner’s family for a while. This has probably happened to just about every roofer in Chicago. What

made our response different? We stripped all the woodwork in the damaged area, painted wherever needed, and stayed with the leaks for the three days, mopping up as it poured in. When the storm was over, we installed a great roof for a satisfied customer. I know some contractors today who would do the same, but many would let the insurance company handle the claim and try to wash their hands of it.

• Our Dark Night of The Soul Then there was the event that brought us all face to face with the reality that we needed to be careful as we labored in a very difficult construction area. One of our workers was killed in a roofing accident. It happened while roofing a church in Chicago. We broke for lunch, and one of our JPUSA workers stayed up on the roof alone. He was trying to move the roof beam so we could work in that area right after lunch. The roof beam started to fall into a parking lot. He grabbed the beam and it pulled him with it. I was there and tried to keep him alive before the ambulance came. He died at the hospital a few days later. This death shocked the whole community and caused us to reconsider all the businesses we were in and how to keep our members out of harm’s way.

• Lakefront Roofing Supply Thus came Lakefront, selling roofing materials, and other less dangerous enterprises. Lakefront Roofing Supply started from the vision to help the small contractor, as we were one of those ourselves. We would know what supplies they needed, be able to train them in the right application procedures and offer the best products on the market. It was the first of its kind in Chicago. “A drive-through roofing supply house.” Many times our customers would pull a very hot tar kettle into our building. This building has a large warehouse in back and three stories of offices in the front. The smoke was a tough reality to the offices of our Direct Ministries at the time.

• Worn Again From the beginning JPUSA members have always been shopping at thrift stores as a way of life. The heart for thrifting combined with our great skills in crafting made starting our own retail/thrift store an easy accessible venture. The thought was that we could use some of the women’s skills for business and at the same time make money for our mission by selling donated clothing. In the late 1970s and early ‘80s a group of women in the community ran a small retail shop, selling homemade items like skirts, handmade accessories and altered hand clothing. We called the store “Mountain of Spices” after a book by Hanna Hurnard some of us were reading at that time. The store front eventually closed down and we opened a new store called “Worn Again”. The object was to be a thrift store with our main focus on clothing. The store also carried redone second hand stuff. Worn again was opened on the first floor of the building that was our first Lakefront. The women decided to make tie-dyed shirts and headbands for Cornerstone Festival one year. It was a huge success, and we started carrying those items in the store after that.

For a while we had a skate shop inside Worn Again. In the nineties we called the store Street Level. By then it was carrying clothing, books, home goods, candles and jewelry. The three women that ran the store gave their all to the project. While Street Level closed down in 2004, we still have the skill and the burden to make and sell handmade stuff. A numbers of women attend different craft fairs, and we run a booth at the Festival where some of the proceeds go to Project 12. Now and then we run craft bazaars to benefit Cornerstone Community Outreach. Concerned Crafts started when one of our members took on the burden of helping single mothers in Guatemala who had lost their husbands in the many kidnappings that wracked the area for a while by selling their handcrafted items.

• Other Ventures We had a number of other ventures during the ensuing years. There was Exterminex, a full service exterminating company. We started

55 this business for two reasons: a brother joined who had run an exterminator business, and secondarily, we had some “pets” that we needed help with. As the brother left so went the company too. Over the years we also tried running: • An insulation company • A knife sharpening business • A carpet cleaning service

All the businesses we started and ran came from the burden and zeal of our members at the time. We have seen many businesses come and go and learned that we had to focus on things we can be the best at.

Mission/Business Focus • What is the primary burden or focus of your ministry/business? • To whom are you trying to minister? • What is your long-term vision? • What steps should you take to accomplish this vision? • How does a business fit into this vision? • Why do you want to start a business? • How long do you plan the business to last? • What are your goals for the people involved in or influenced by your business? • What are your financial goals for the business? • To make just enough to support church members and their families? • To finance a ministry project? 56

• To support relatives elsewhere? • To allow your family to live more comfortably?

All of these questions are important. You simply need to know which goal is first and foremost, God-given focus and then make a commitment to it. Then, do not be swayed in your purpose, but be moved only by the Holy Spirit. For example, if your financial goal is simply to generate income, you can buy apples or potatoes and resell them. Such a business provides little training; it is simply a money source. If your focus is to disciple young believers, try to find a business that would utilize the gifts of those you want to minister to. With what church or parachurch organization is your mission affiliated? What is your home church? Does your church support your business ideas? Does your pastor know about your business? Does he support you personally? Your enterprise? What kind of ongoing spiritual accountability will you have?

Does your existing business or the business you are planning place you in a position where you might be tempted to do something that would not please Him? For example, owning a video store might tempt you to sell or rent questionable material. How do you plan to handle that temptation? Will your spiritual leaders know you enough to challenge you? Will you listen? Do you have a mission statement that clearly defines your spiritual goals and business ideals? It is important to a successful mission-business to find and nurture a staff of people who share your vision and heart – who accept and support the primary focus of your business and who have Kingdom priorities. A clearly defined mission statement is a good first step in sharing that vision. You must take time to write out your personal vision for your mission/business. It took me years to work through our mission statement and now I ask every employee, member of JPUSA or not, saved or unsaved, to have it printed on his or her business card.

Lakefront’s Mission Statement To honor and serve our Lord Jesus Christ in all we do and say. To maintain the highest level of ethical and moral standards towards our customers and employees. To provide quality service, competitive pricing and state-of-the-art product lines to help create success for our customers. To continually improve our processes and methods of doing business. To provide the newest products and services in our industry to our customers through training seminars, videos and literature.

This statement is an open door for the Gospel to everyone. The opening sentence puts His mark on our business and expresses the reason we aspire to be best at what we do in our marketplace.

Business Ethics How does one discuss mission/business without at least touching on one of the most important topics – Godly business ethics? Ethical issues sneak up on us. Every day an ethical issue slips in the midst of the busyness, just when we do not need another issue to think about. Oftentimes, we do not even recognize that there is an ethical issue, because the situation looks so ordinary. This is all part of God’s plan for us. He tests our hearts in all things, throughout our days, because He wants our hearts to be right.

Here are some real life situations, questions and possible solutions to consider: • When a truckload of products comes in invoiced at 500 pieces and you count 540 pieces, what do you do? Solution: Call the manufacturer and tell him to bill you for the 40 extra pieces. “Ill-gotten gains do not profit.” (Proverbs 10:2a)(NASB)

• Two forklifts are stolen from your place of business. What do you do? Fire all warehouse personnel? Solution: Learn from your mistakes. When this happened to us, we took a long, hard look at our operations. We discovered several areas of weakness: weak internal controls; a lack of security cameras; an atmosphere of carelessness and laziness; and a lack of training. We could have focused on catching and punishing the culprits. Instead, we learned a hard lesson and attempted to create an atmosphere of honesty and integrity in our warehouse.

• Do you give a cash finder’s fee for a job or contract? Reminder: “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1Timothy 6:10a)(KJV) Say, for example, an employee of a property management company asks for a cash finder’s fee for awarding a roofing contract. Once the employee has received a monetary reward for performing one of his/her ordinary job duties, what will his/her expectation be for the next contract? You may be training an employee to be greedy and to put his or her own interests ahead of those of the employer. Suggestion: How about a personal letter of thanks to the employee assigned to the task of awarding contracts with a “cc” to the owner of the firm? If the owner of the firm is seeking the finder’s fee as a reward for the referral, pray about your company policy. If it is “no cash money or large financial perk,” and I suggest you develop a policy like this, then write a thank you letter with a token gift (say, two movie passes and a gift certificate for dinner). Suggest the owner enjoy a date with his or her spouse or plan a family outing. Possible Outcomes:

#1 You might lose a large contract because you would not allow an individual employee to profit at his boss’s expense. #2 If you have been paying money for the finder’s fee, you might lose the next big job. Are you willing to put this into the Lord’s hands and trust Him? #3 You will gain the most powerful thing of all: a chance to be a witness of righteousness in the marketplace where you live. We say we are missionaries or Christian business people in the marketplace; we must live it. We will amaze people when we sacrifice our gain for His.

• When a customer tells you his wife left him and took his two kids, do you take time then or plan a meeting with him? Our faith demands that we not only cure the ills of our own actions but of the world’s. I am always astounded by the people the Lord brings my way in my business. It might be a lunch with a troubled salesman, a roofer who needs to talk about his domestic plight or a troubled employee who cannot see the reason for being a part of a team. The Lord will always convict us of the right thing to do and ask that we share it with others who need to hear. Solution: Take the time now to hear him out. Keep your Kingdom priorities and He will always give you the time. You may not finish the tasks you planned, but His work will be accomplished that day.

• A businessman tells you he has done cash jobs totaling tens of thousands of dollars that he has not reported to the IRS. He asks your opinion of what to do with the money. What do you tell him? Can we instill our ethics in nonbelievers? It is not only possible, but is our mark on the world. We can have a Biblically-based world view. As we study ourselves to be approved by God (2 Tim. 2:15 (KJV)), we can live with this view. If you are not sure what to advise, you could always wait a moment, pray and answer later. Ask the Lord, He will guide you. Solution: Tell the businessman to do what is right and report the income, even if it costs a bit more in taxes than he planned. The alternative is very dangerous. If you advise the businessman of the Biblical standard, without being critical of his final decision, you free

60 him to make his own, informed decision and God will not hold you accountable. The Lord is interested in our integrity in ethical matters. • You can, of course, sweeten the advice by suggesting ways honesty may benefit the business. In our example, you might suggest that the businessman consult an accountant to see if reporting the income and investing it in a tax-deductible business asset would be advantageous.

• Do you “help” a customer out by giving him a second, inflated invoice so that he can collect more material costs on a job? Early on, the business I manage has chosen, at the cost of some large jobs, to walk away from this practice, even though it is common in our industry. Solution: We will not inflate invoices; we will, however, assist our customers with job pricing, product information and other means of operating more cost effectively?

• How tough should you be on credit issues? Should you sue? We take collections seriously and have sued several contractors over the years. We only take this step, however, after extensive efforts to find out what the difficulty is and to work with the customer. We try to balance mercy and justice. We try also to choose collection agencies and attorneys who have high ethical standards.

• Should you ever forgive a debt? There is a heavy responsibility in granting credit. As a Christian, you are stewarding and have put at risk the Lord’s money. Sometimes you have to forgive a debt that could be collected. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew 7:12)(NASB) We have forgiven debts when it has hindered our relationship with a struggling customer. “. . . as we have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)(NASB) Talk and pray with your credit team. Forgive the debt when it would be right. Write the debtor an encouraging letter.

• A loyal customer informs you that one of your workers has been stealing your products. What do you do – fire your worker?

Solution: Get the complete facts first. If there is no solid evidence, take an opportunity to encourage all your workers in honesty and integrity. If the evidence is strong, confront your worker. Prayerfully consider whether to give your worker a second chance. Is he or she repentant? What is the Lord telling you? Strongly consider whether giving your worker a second chance will restore him or her, or merely indulge his or her weakness. Consider the effect of your decision on your other workers. Aim at the decision that will build up and encourage.

• Do you simply trust all the people who handle your money or do you make sure you have adequate checks and balances? This may seem a question of commonsense finances, rather than an ethical issue. We have discovered the hard way that simply trusting a brother or sister, without safeguards or accountability, is the lazy way out. It may put a brother or sister in jeopardy and, if someone falls, may undermine the trust we have for each other. Solution: Avoid putting anyone in a position of grave temptation by setting up systems of mutual accountability. We are our brothers’ keepers. We are also stewards accountable for what the Lord has entrusted to us.

• One employee punches another’s time card, cheating your company of two hours work. What do you do? You may ask, “How is this possible?” A small, family-run business is often characterized by an atmosphere of familiarity and friendship. An unscrupulous or thoughtless employee can take advantage of this. Do not train employees in looseness! Solution: Address both employees’ conduct. Put better controls in, for example, by putting the time clock in a more visible place or by installing cameras. Most importantly, promote a workplace ethic of honor and honesty.

Will You Bury Your Talents? If you have the talent to earn money, should you bury it and find something else to do or use it for His work and will? Talents are God-given. If you have been given the talent of entrepreneurship, use it – for His glory. While Jesus said it was more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle (Matt. 19:24), He did not say it is impossible. To enter Jerusalem through the “needle’s eye” (a pedestrian gate), a camel would have to first be unloaded and then persuaded to move slowly through that hole in the wall, sometimes on its knees at a crawl (depending on the size). If we are rich in worldly goods, we must be humble and willing to give it all away if He asks, as He did the rich young ruler (Matt. 19:21).

Our God is a radical God who constantly examines our hearts, whether we are rich or poor. Are you ready to acknowledge that all riches come from God and belong to Him? Are you ready to give up all claim to “your” wealth, whether or not you give it away?

4 HARD KNOCKS TO REALITY

n every business there is an aspect of community. A business, much like a community, needs a focused purpose. Its management and staff are faced with some crucial questions. WhyI are we in it? What were our reasons for starting? What are the driving forces? In the 1970s we started our contracting businesses simply because we had hungry mouths to feed and some of us had experience in the construction industry. In this chapter I’ll share some of our “hard knocks” lessons. My hope is that these would be instructive or let you know that you’re not alone. Maybe you’ll keep from making some of the mistakes we did. When I started JP Roofing in 1980, I’d only roofed one geodesic dome as a junior in college over summer break. I thought it was cool that I didn’t have any experience, and that I was “just doing it.” When we started Lakefront Roofing Supply in 1985, I hadn’t had any college business classes and had come by my experience in the “school of hard knocks.” I had a mentor who was a real estate developer who had grown with me in my painting days and followed me in the roofing years. I had him look at my financials and asked him a lot about banking. He helped me immensely in these areas but, again, I learned to be mostly a “street wise” business man. When I look back at the many times we were “taken” in credit situations, or had our workers stealing from us, I see that I wasn’t really so wise.

I thought that because God made me a business man I didn’t need outside help. I thought of myself as a purist of sorts, taking classes or reading books would have made me just like any other businessman! I was so wrong. Those years were filled with failed communication with managers and workers. We had so many needless meetings with no real purpose in them. Many of our businesses failed because we didn’t help our workers get the training they needed. In the last thirty years JPUSA’s thirty business ventures have offered some whopper lessons. On the back of Mission Improbable it says “Business is not for the faint of heart.” These questions from that booklet are not exhaustive to every situation, but if you’re starting out, starting over, or venturing into new areas you may find them helpful.

I have found that many men and women in business seem to be trapped in business without a sense of why they are there. Their original vision has changed or the market place has changed them. They long to get back to the foundational truths about Vocation and what that means to them in their work a day world. Any work a person puts their heart into as a service to God is their simple vocation and calling.11 Finding and receiving one’s vocation before God, and keeping the vision for it, is one of the most difficult tasks of the Christian life. It involves prayer, spiritual discernment, and the active help of one’s Christian community or church. Part of the ministry of any Mission-Business lies in fostering this sense of vocation among its members.

Any work a person puts their heart into as a service to God is their simple vocation and calling.

Over the Christmas break of 2001 I knew as a manager I had to start looking at the Lakefront team in a new way. It had been a challenging year with lots of internal conflict and trouble with job execution. The team was struggling and it all was stemming from insufficient manager skills and communication. The task at hand was very difficult. Some people had to move to a new job and then again others left Lakefront. I knew that I had to gather a team of the actual day to day leaders.

11 Leland Ryken’s book Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure has much more to say on this topic. 66

I didn’t know where we were heading and I didn’t have the insight or experience for what lay ahead. That following year I came across Jim Collins’s book Good To Great.12 The book spoke directly to our situation. I shared the book with everyone, and together we started the Steering Committee almost immediately afterward.

Good to Great asks why some companies excel while others level out and fail. It looks into what characteristics made the difference. Using a team of 30 professionals, they researched over 1400 companies to find the 11 who made the mark. The book’s findings have become accepted within both the profit and nonprofit business communities as a boost to operating procedures.

Great companies: • Are headed by what the team defined as a “level 5 leader,”13 a leader who is more like Lincoln than Patton. Humble and reserved in many aspects but very direct with an uncompromising resolve to greatness. We place a high premium on humility with our leadership. Having a plurality of leadership helps keep us humble.

• Operated on a “first who then what”14 principle when getting new products or expansions moving. First get the right people on the bus (using his analogy), then the leader’s job is to move them into the right seats on the bus for the best impact for the company and the individual. Many failings in business were due to not having the skilled people, the “who,” we had many “whats.” It takes time to develop the right “who.”

12 Jim Collins, Good to Great, (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001), 17 13 Collins, Good to Great, 17 14 Collins, Good to Great, 152 67

• Determined what they could be the “best in the world”15 at and then they stuck to it. Walgreen’s is one example of a company that moved from good to great. Early in their transition to greatness, the CEO determined that they needed to close the restaurants in their stores and focus on what they were best at – developing convenient drug stores. They focused on selling practical household items that would generate the most dollars per store visit. They simply decided to do what they were best at and focus on only that. In looking at ourselves, we determined that we invest the most in relationships. Our business has grown through honesty, loyalty and fairness, attention to “the small guy,” and a willingness to take the long view in a conflict, until we could reach consensus. Life together in JPUSA has been the smelting furnace for this. These companies knew “what they were most passionate about”16 Again, at JPUSA, our passions have not changed over the years. It is all about relationships, especially in our businesses. For example, we

15 Collins, Good to Great, 95 16 Collins, Good to Great, 114 68 have customer prayer lists for those who want prayer, we go to weddings and funerals and give special care to our customers and vendors. In all the good to great companies, the leader put together a council made up of people who were most passionate about the business. These were not necessarily all managers, but were the ones that had the passion and know how to make the company run smoother. I chose ten people and one of my pastors to be a part of what we called the Steering Committee. We meet at least once a week in the winter and twice a month during the roofing season. I lead the group with a key agenda as to what we must discuss. Here is the memo I originally sent out explaining its purpose:

RE: STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING GUIDES

I am responding to some of you committee members who have been asking, “Why are we meeting?” and “What is the purpose for the meeting anyway?” I hope all of you have had a chance to read the article on meetings. It brought out the fact that about 80% of all meetings should never have happened. “We meet so much it never gives us a chance to DO anything.”

Well, my friends, I do not believe this to be the case at Lakefront. We are so busy and moving so fast. It is seldom (maybe at review time) that I can sit and reflect with all of you at the main branch who have committed to leadership. By your passion and leadership you all have elected yourselves to this committee. You are on the front line and make it or break it in deciding things for the whole. So why meet?

Steering committee meetings serve three important functions:

1. Vision. You all know I love this part of Lakefront. I do believe if we all don’t know where we are headed, we will start losing sight of the real reason we exist. SO I am committed to sharing the vision of where we are and where we are going, including our financial outlook and short and long-term planning.

2. Communication. The steering committee gives us a forum, while we are all present, to bring up issues and problems that affect the company as a whole.

3. Decision-Making. This is the time to plan and take action on things that are hindering our growth as a company and that should be addressed now.

More generally, steering committee meetings give us the opportunity to see the larger picture, to know the burdens each of us is carrying and to pray.

I am honored to serve with you all. I know that this is the right team in the boat at this time. Let’s each make sure we are in the right seat, and then lead Lakefront to a powerful witness to customers, vendors, and each other in Christ as we make money for our home. Thank you for serving with me on the board. I appreciate all of you. Let’s keep talking.

Peace,

Tim J Bock

The Viking Ship Jim Collin’s book helped me see that the right people have to be in the right place in a business. He illustrates the concept with the idea that a leader’s job was to put all the right people on the bus and then

make sure they are all sitting in the right seats. The leader will drive them to greatness. This image did not work for me. What does it matter if the people are sitting on one side of the bus or the other? How does this help them get to greatness?

Instead of a bus where the riders were passive, my imagination was sparked by the idea of a Viking long ship. Each of the seats on the ship are critical to the mission. Each person has been considered for the job and has been tested for it by the commander. I’ve learned that in difficult times if I have all my heavy rowers (the most strong and energetic ones) on one side of the ship, then I am constantly fighting their work as I steer the rudder. Sometimes my job is to stop the ship for a moment and move half of the stronger ones to one side to balance them out so that the job of steering is not so hard. Then I am free to encourage the crew and go up to the mast to see the big vision of where we are at and where they are going.

This image didn’t catch on at first with my crew. “The Vikings were all about killing and blood. Why can’t it just be a boat?” In time everyone caught onto the vision. I have been given two of these steel model ships. One sits on my desk at my office and one is at my home. Many of my workers have drawn pictures of these ships for me and it has really rallied them to the truth that if they are not in the right seat on our boat at Lakefront, or they see someone not in the best seat, then they need to speak up and do something about it. Now history reveals that what was truly notable about the Vikings was that they were the first to explore and use the sail. So here we have this image of all the right people chosen for the boat. They complement each other with their work, working in a single direction, freeing the leader to do the vision casting and planning better. Remember our title “Unless the Lord Builds the House.” It applies here. The rowers rely not only on their own strength to row (it wasn’t that rowers alone pulled Lief Ericson across the Atlantic!) but also the wind for the long journey.

Without bringing God glory and credit for our business, even with our best efforts we’ll only end up fatigued and short of the shore.

Servant Leadership The best leadership in any business and especially in a mission business, is a Servant leader. One that is humble and passionate to serve people first then the business. This has been my key all these years. My goal in business is to have people as my priority and then 72 making money as secondary. I once asked the steering committee people to tell me what their “best day” would look like. Mine was when I could touch as many people in my business as possible. To really ask and see how everyone was doing.

The idea of being a Servant Leader, being the kind of person who can first lay down their lives for their workers, and also put their own ego down is straight out of the Bible. In Phillipians 2:5-8 God himself emptied himself on our behalf. Servant leaders give up their talents to the Lord. Paul wrote that whatever he’d achieved from his years of learning, teaching and violent zeal for God was really a loss. (Phil. 3:4-11) He then writes:

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Ph. 3:11-14)

That is humility! Then Paul demonstrates leadership when he says, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” (Phil. 3:17) Clearly none of us have “arrived” yet, but when we let the Holy Spirit guide us, we can set an example to be followed. Servant leaders know that whatever they have they were given, and that as they give what they have up for the common good, God will provide just what they need. Jesus said, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”(Matt. 10:39) The Servant Leader is one who knows what it means to lead by example but not micro 73

manage. He/she is one who will instill vision in all workers and give them freedom to fly.

Be Teachable Another book that has really influenced me, and really the entire Business as Mission movement is Profit for the Lord by William Danker. This book tells the story of the missionary activities of the Moravian Church beginning in 1732. The Unitas Fratrum (which is their official name) understood business as a way to support missions and spread the gospel. They saw business as a means to an end, and broke the perception that business is a secular sphere, and the church the sacred. The Moravians were a simple people who saw all work as God given. The book ends with a call to us who will look at work and Business as a vital means to Ministry even if we hit the hard times, reminding us that we will see God at work when we keep our focus on Him.

”Once again we may have to look to a small, dedicated group of people like the Moravians, people who will perform heroically in the world mission out of all proportion to their numbers. These charismatic, Spirit- filled individuals will seek every possible channel through which they can make and support their witness. Some will speak the redemptive Good News of Jesus with their lips. Some will serve their fellow man in educational and medical roles. And some will feel called to serve Christ in the market place individually and together.”17

I believe the best way to learn business is by linking with folks who are doing the work well, learning as much as you can from them. Being teachable is probably one of the most important aspects of business that I have learned. My early problem was that I thought I had to do it all alone without any help. When I realized my erroneous thinking, I soaked up many good books and was mentored by many in my field. I am still a student in so many ways. I give to you a simple word; you are not alone in anything you are trying to do. Find the people who will mentor you and if you are in the position to

17 William J. Danker, Profit for the Lord, Eerdmans, 1971, pg. 142 74 mentor someone else, by God’s grace please do it! Remember where you came from? We are all to sit ultimately at the Father’s feet and trust Him to Build the House we are working on.

5 DIRECT MINISTRY

ll our direct ministries started from the members we had who had the vision and passion for an outreach that we agreed A was important. From shelters to music to print publications, they all had passionate people at the heart of the work. One of the most important things JPUSA offers is a structured discipleship program, intended to minister to those who God brings to our door.

Moving into the Neighborhood and being at home there Our approach to ministry at Jesus People USA in Uptown Chicago has always been to relocate and live where we can make a difference. Dawn Mortimer, one of our founding pastors, puts it this way: “Everyone appreciates when people come from outside churches to pitch in, but to really get a work started you have to live there. You don’t live somewhere else, then go in, do something neat and then go back out. You really have to settle in if you’re going to make a difference. When we first came to Chicago and were living at Faith Tabernacle we would go down witnessing on the streets and sometimes people would yell, ‘Go back out to the suburbs where you came from!’ We’d reply, ‘We can’t. We live here.’ So the thought always was that we weren’t coming into Uptown to say ‘Here we have the answer,’ but rather “We’re here in Uptown to be neighbors with you.’”

“Our main purpose at Jesus People was to live out the Christian life.

We provided a place for young people to get their lives together with God. It was sort of like going to a Teen Challenge, but then you didn’t have to go home afterwards. Our number one focus was having a place for young people who were messed up from broken homes, drugs, whatever. From there we started all the things that the Bible tells us to do.”18 “As Christians what would we do with Christ’s mandate? There’s spread the gospel but then there’s also feed the poor and clothe the naked. That’s just like breathing, because that is part of our call. Jesus’ last will and testament for His disciples included two very important things. One was in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20, where he said go and make disciples of all peoples. The second was in the judgment story of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46. When we meet Him again he’s going to ask, ‘Did you feed me?’, ‘Did you clothe me?’, and ‘Did you visit me in prison?’ Sometimes in the Jesus Movement of the 1970s they were thinking about getting people saved to fulfill the first part, but not considering the Call of Christ to feed, clothe and care for those most easily forgotten.”

Reaching Out As in our business startups, we never had a 5/10/20 year plan for Direct Ministry. They started at the grass roots level in our neighborhood. We were trying to meet needs with the men and women who lived in the community. Then it grew organically. Our shelter grew out of a city wide housing crisis that began with federal cuts to social services in the early 1980s. This, combined with gentrification by landlords attempting to drive struggling families out of Uptown, created the need for us to turn the floors of our dining room and lobby into beds for homeless women with children, families, and single men. Helen Shiller, was our local alderwoman,

18 Charles Marsh calls this way of relocating and living out the gospel Incarnational Evangelism. His book The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, From the Civil Rights Movement to Today profiles many other ministries who have done the same thing. These include Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm, and John Perkins of the Christian Community Development Association. 77

and Cornerstone writer and editor Jon Trott fought the city for low income housing by living with tenants who’d been evicted in a tent city at the end of our block. In 1989 we acquired an old factory building a few blocks away for a shelter. Over time, and with city funding, we renovated and expanded it. Feeding the hungry through our dinner guest program started when a couple of folks in need of food came to our door and we fed them with our own food. One man was overwhelmed with the hot meal he received and he brought a few friends the next day. In a very short time, the number of people coming for meals grew to over 200, and we could not serve them with our leftovers anymore. We needed to greatly increase the number of meals we prepared and we needed more money to do this.

Dawn describes the beginning this way: “Different neighbors were eating with us at suppertime. Finally it just got to where there wasn’t enough room. One of the neighbors said, ‘I got an idea, we could eat earlier and then you Jesus People could eat supper, and then we’ll have more room.’ So every day they could come at two or three o’clock, have the same meal we would eat, and then we would eat at suppertime.

Mother and child at Cornerstone 78

Cornerstone Community Outreach began in 1989, located at 4628 North Clifton Ave, we provide homeless women with up to 120 days of shelter and services. The shelter provides housing, nutritious meals, clothing, group and individual counseling, individualized case management, as-needed medical and mental health assessments, life- skills classes, substance abuse counseling, money management, job referral, housing relocation assistance and budgeting.

The building accommodates a large kitchen and dining area, and a large dormitory for women and children. A one-million dollar renovation furnished us with the daycare center, the three family

Margaret Brown teaches a life skills class at the Sylvia Center

rooms, new bathroom facilities with showers, the laundry room, and recreational facilities.

Since Spring of 2002, CCO has begun expanding internationally with the adoption of the Osana Foundation, a Romanian NGO, 79 dedicated to the same mission as CCO. We look forward to new collaborations with Osana and other organizations with a like mission. Since 2000 CCO has operated the Naomi Interim program, which houses 75 single women, wherein they can address issues that hinder them from moving forward. We provide case management and ultimately permanent housing.

Sylvia Center Interim Housing for Families located at 4615 North Clifton Avenue, accommodates approximately 150 people. The shelter provides families with housing, nutritious meals, clothing, group and individual counseling, individualized case management, as-needed medical and mental health assessments, life-skills classes, substance abuse counseling, money management, job referral, housing relocation assistance, and after school programs for the kids. Leland House Leland Second Stage Housing Program was located at 4656 N. Malden and offered 18 homeless single mothers and their children permanent supportive housing. Program participants received two or three bedroom apartment, case management, job training referrals, and budgeting. While participating in this program, women worked on attaining their educational potential, finding work, and making links to support systems designed to sustain permanent housing. In 2016 the building was sold to another non-profit. The funds went too support our existing outreach shelter programs.

Dinner Guest Program The Dinner Guest Program located at 4628 North Clifton Avenue, serves 150-200 people nutritious free meals one day a week. Our Food Bag Program hands out more than 120 food bags each week to those in our area who are on the edge of independent survival. All individuals walking through our doors may also receive household items and clothing from our Free Store.

Free Store A Thrift Store like facility where the clients we serve may shop free for clothing and household items. All of these items have been graciously donated to CCO for its clients.

CCO After-School Program

CCO After-School Program The After-School Program located at 4628 North Clifton Avenue, provided tutoring and recreation to CCO homeless kids ages five through ten. Activities include team-building games, strategy and learning board games, outings, art projects, sports, and camp.

Brothas and Sistas United (BSU) was CCO’s junior high and high school after-school youth program. This program was designed to help relieve the life stresses of at-risk inner-city youth whose families were homeless or formerly homeless.

Uptown, Chicago’s most racially and economically mixed community, offers its youth tremendous opportunities, as well as tremendous risks. Uptown shares the same problems facing all urban communities: gangs, drugs, prostitution, homelessness, illiteracy, and racial conflict. Boys and girls growing up in this environment face tough challenges. To meet these challenges, Brothas & Sistas United was there to help.

The Crisis Pregnancy Center operated from 1988-1999. • Was located at first at the 939 Wilson building that also housed the Cornerstone Magazine offices, and then later moved to CCO. • Provided free pregnancy testing and counseling, and explained the alternatives to abortion. 82

• Provided informational and material aid to new mothers. • We had created our own version of what later became known as the “seamless garment” of human life issues: protection for the unborn, food and housing for the homeless, resistance toward forces aligned against the poor, and a continuing effort to lead others to Him who is Life.

Cornerstone Magazine was in print from 1972-2003 • Began as an evangelism tool for the Jesus People USA Traveling Team. • In time the paper was so well known that it was able to sell advertising and function as a clearinghouse for the music and news relating to the Jesus Movement

• Some issues had print runs of up to two hundred fifty thousand copies that were mostly given away. • Became the voice of an inner city Evangelical community whose evangelism involved daily identification and advocacy with the poor and homeless. • The mag staff were as equally concerned with counseling and discipleship as they were with getting print on a page, offering its audience “help in any way,” with the invitation to call or stop by. • When Cornerstone ceased print publication, the writers and editors of the mag went about doing in a fuller capacity what they’d been doing for years: serving in Uptown Chicago, counseling, running a homeless shelter, raising children, and working for Cornerstone Festival.

Cornerstone Festival started in 1984. • Many Christian musical festivals shot up in the 1970s and 80s in the US and Europe. • An annual five-day music, teaching and art festival in its heyday served approximately 20,000 attendees on a 600-acre, gorgeous property. This was JPUSA’s largest direct outreach each year. • Began at a fairgrounds in Grayslake, IL 84

• 1991 moved to Bushnell, IL • Brought our own unique band’s sense for music and art ministries to the table, combined with a focus on solid teaching and community. • From the beginning we had our own niche, offering an alternative to main stream Christian festivals. • Includes kids programs, games, activities, and good food. • Flickerings was a film festival within the festival. More than that, it was a community and a conversation. Each year since 2001, filmmakers, critics, and film buffs at every level came together for a week of screenings, seminars, workshops, discussions, networking and vision-building. • Mike Hertenstein describes the Imaginarium as ”A quantum experience, both particle and wave, a program for grown-ups and

Kids run the “goody gallop” at Cornerstone Festival kids and vice versa. That is to say, the Imaginarium became known as a place to connect and re-connect with certain aspects of reality in 85

such a way as to provoke talk of “wonder” and “childlike innocence” — and yet we all know it’s more complicated than that.” • Cornerstone Festival was a leap of faith when it began, and it was by God’s grace every year.

Grrr Records started in 1988 • Manages a variety of music outreaches, including the Glenn Kaiser Band, The Crossing, Aracely (Altar in the Sky), and Leper. The artist backlist includes Rez Band, Grace and Glory, Crashdog, The Blamed, Left Out, Seeds, Headnoise, The Remnants, and Busker Kibbutznik. • Began as Rez band’s record sales were growing. For many years we were working with other Christian music labels, but knew that Rez and other upcoming ministry bands needed more care. In 1988 God opened the door for us to start our own record label. 86

• After working for many years with other Christian music labels, JPUSA’s music ministry through Resurrection Band saw the need to provide its own artist management and record distribution. • In time JPUSA developed other bands in various musical genres and added these to the label. • Grrr distributes for a handful of other independent artists who live outside of JPUSA. • Grrr Records now owns all distribution rights for its music, and sells exclusively from its website. It is also developing full length videos for distribution.

Cornerstone Press Chicago started in 1992 • It was JPUSA’s book publishing arm.

• Had worked with published authors such as Rolland Hein and Kathryn Lindskoog, and JPUSA authors like Curt Mortimer, Jon Trott, and Glenn Kaiser. • Had general market distribution to book stores on topics ranging from homelessness, art, poetry, local Christmas history, and Christian mythmaking.

Youth missions • Youth mission trips to JPUSA provide an eye-opening, vision expanding experience for people of all ages. Many visitors go back to their own homes and churches revitalized in their faith. • Two JPUSA members coordinate short term mission visits from churches all over the United States. Each visitor pays a per night fee for room and board. Groups of up to forty persons are accommodated. • Visiting groups stay in one of two community-owned dorms. One is the first floor of an apartment building located directly behind our main building. There is bunk space for 27 in four separate rooms,

88 with three bathrooms containing showers. There is a living room as well. Visits are by reservation only, on a first-come-first-served basis.

Project 12 was our Discipleship Training School. Biblical education and Christian formation classes were an important part in the early days of the community. Some of the young members in the early 1970s left the community and others stayed. The ones who stayed eventually got married and raised families. Over the years our days got filled with ministry and it became difficult to fit formal classes into the daily schedule. P12 was a return to our roots in many ways. Making room for this new P12 initiative required some changes for all of our ministries and businesses, but it brought with it renewal and growth. • It had three trimester program focused on Personal Growth, learning about Culture and Worldview, Bible studies, and Practical community living and opportunities to serve Uptown. •Students worked in the community for four to six hours each day, at Lakefront, CCO, wherever most needed, and then the rest of the day into the evening was taken up with formal classes. • In September the students and staff went on an Orientation Retreat for eleven days. • In the early Spring they went on an outreach trip for one to two weeks.

Stories from the Frontline

How to Start a Homeless Shelter Chris and Sandy Ramsey were working at Cornerstone Magazine in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Sandy remembers that she got really angry the first time Dawn Mortimer asked her to go downstairs to our lobby and help a homeless person. “I just thought, ’I don’t know what to do for this person.’ Now I’m like a social worker. I never intended to be a social worker. My first response was just to get mad.” Now the director of CCO, Sandy remembers, “When we fed and housed people it wasn’t comfortable. We didn’t have a plan or a program. We housed a hundred women and children in the dining 89

room and seventy men in the lobby and we formed little teams of two or three members who got to know the guests, but none of it was comfortable or organized. We were just able to live out our heart and if we had thought, ‘Oh this is too hard we don’t want these weird people in here,’ then, yes, we would have missed out. Our whole shelter world, we leapt out in faith. We would have liked to have had a life of privacy. In inviting all these street people in we were walking into a new world of engagement. Had we not stepped out we would have missed the generations of families we’ve gotten to know over the years. We would have missed the thousands of people we’ve gotten to know through the shelter.“

A Privilege to be a part of people’s endings Some of the people we’ve cared for over the years end up dying while they are with us. Sometimes God has us there to walk with people through their final hours as a family so they won’t be alone. Sandy Ramsey stated “When we were living at Malden a little old lady came and stayed in our dorm for just a couple of nights before she passed away. We didn’t know she was getting ready to die. That next fall a man came with his family and they were in and out of the shelter a few times. He got liver cancer and two CCO staff members walked through his last days with him in hospice care. Then we did his funeral. Another woman from our shelter lost her child to a gang shooting. We went to the funeral. I think we feel privileged to be a part of people’s endings. If we’re in their life I think we have to trust God for whatever impact or seed was sown. I just put those people in the Lord’s hands, and feel like it’s another service to them.”

A Night time Snack Dawn Mortimer said “When Curt and I lived as staff on the fourth floor of the Sylvia building we just loved the people who were living there. About once a month we’d get everybody to put their kids down to bed and we’d buy pizzas and sit out in that living room area and eat pizza and have pop. Once the kids were in bed I went around door to door with a little snack bag.

I loved the idea of having the snack. At home I always loved a snack just before bed. A glass of milk, a little orange juice. A cookie just feels nice. We’d always wanted fourth floor to be a midway place between the shelter and having your own place. We wanted to live there with just a family or two on the same floor. Eat together, cook our own meals. Really take care of the children, talking together. Just us living on the floor with everybody, saying goodnight, having a little meal together, it was just a good thing all around.”

From the Shelter into JPUSA ”We were blessed to have a team of young people who were single

Ginny with Sandy Ramsey (left)

91 at the time who had a burden to talk and minister. We formed relationships back then, who are still in our life. The most outstanding story of someone we got to know was Ginny.” stated Sandy Ramsey “Ginny was on methadone and any other drug she could get. She and her two kids stayed at CCO and we helped her get an apartment. Her daughter was in Brothas and Sistas United. We kept in contact and helped her in minor and major crises. She came back into the shelter. At that point I felt we’d done all we could do and didn’t really have anything else to offer. The Lord used that because she ended up leaving the shelter and successfully getting into another little apartment. It was then that she got saved. I remember being irritated and thinking, “Why couldn’t she get saved with us?” We had put in lots and lots of hours with her. She had to go off and get saved somewhere else. That was sort of funny. Anyway, she came back into our lives and I knew she’d been saved. I knew she was different. And then from there she grew gradually, started to work for us at the shelter, and eventually moved in with us at JPUSA and got married here! This was one of our most successful cases.”

To Whom Much Is Given Sandy Ramsey said “I believe that the people we work with are like jewels underneath. When we get to know them and they open up to us we get to help them uncover those jewels. Many of the women (and men) grew up in physically, sexually and mentally abusive homes. Their substance abuse is directly tied to that. One woman who has been a friend for years has sought us out as her “people of peace”. She grew up in an orphanage and her life is still so filled with pain. She has not been given much in life, but she knows the Lord. Although she suffers from severe addictions, I know she will be in Heaven before many others. Because she is not given much, not much is expected of her. She has a simple childlike faith in God and that is sufficient. I know that some churches don’t teach that. You have to shape up and look good to be included and invited to the service. My friend comes to church often, even though she is struggling to keep herself together. She is there receiving and giving

love. She is truly “one of the least of these” who is going to be in Heaven with me one day.”

Friendly Towers: The Mission Field in our own House The majority of our seniors come to us extremely isolated. They have lost connections with friends and families. Most of them cannot even list a next of kin on the intake form because they don’t know anyone.

The isolation is mainly due to mental illness, substances abuse, or just plain unforgiveness. The most unique aspect of our senior living program is the level of intergenerational living. They live with us under one roof. We JPUSAs bring so much life to their previously isolated worlds. Cap, one senior who lived with us for 10 years, passed away in 2007. He was a full-blooded Native American Sioux Indian and 101 years of age. What a character he was. He came to us homeless at age 90 and he was one of the most stubborn men I’ve ever known. He had a very gruff way about him. He was indeed very independent and did not want help for anything. Cap Horse But he came to need us and we came to need and love him. He came to love us in his own way and we became his family. Whenever he saw one of the children he would have a big smile on his face. When he first came he had forgotten how to smile.

Over the years we have learned that we are not only here to help the seniors, but we are here to learn all they teach us about life. JPUSA member, Rebecca Hill said: “The senior program is like having a mission field in our own home”. That is so true. We are sometimes the last stop. After a senior dies sometimes the family comes out of the woodwork and adds to their story some things we did not know. We are blessed to get to partake in their lives, even when this is a ministry that God laid in our lap when we moved into our ten story building. We feel that God sends people to us who are in need of being loved at the end of their lives. Many of them have probably never been cared for and loved.”

Investing Community into a Jesus Festival Cornerstone Festival was the first Midwestern Jesus festival. We felt that our festival could mirror Cornerstone magazine’s emphasis, serving as a bridge between young, culturally radical believers and older believers. The young could delightfully shock the old with their serious zeal for God, and the old could lend stability to the young with some great teaching and one-on-one discussion. Our dream seemed tailor-made to address these problems, and after long deliberation (mainly over how we would possibly pay for such an undertaking) we began finalizing plans for Cornerstone ’84. Our entire community was buzzing with activity throughout the spring of 1984. The added festival preparations further stretched our men in what had always been the busiest time of year for community businesses. Yet excitement over the fest mounted among JPUSAs. Unlike our many other ministries, from the bands to various social services, we saw our festival as the one outreach every JPUSA could be involved in. Round-the-clock prayer lists were posted, and we also asked Christian friends across the country to bathe the fest in prayer. The first Cornerstone was an auspicious beginning, despite the fact that we lost sixty thousand dollars. Over eight thousand people attended, and in light of the fest’s incredible fruit, we decided to make it an annual event.”

Friends of Time We are honored to serve Christ with each other in Direct Ministries that have been formed and built by the people God called us to live with. Like with any work, it is the people of passion and vision who start and continue the work. We have been privileged to have such dedicated people to serve with, who are constantly challenging our comfort zones and getting us to look at the new needs. Instead of asking, “Could we do this?” we ask “Should we Lord . . . build the house?” The challenge is always to “be the friend of time,” as Jean Vanier says, and take the long view approach to helping people. Can you see and accept people where they are now with the hope and vision for where they can be in the future? This is the challenge of faith for all of us. Not to judge people but to serve them, knowing that “But for God’s grace, there go I.” Are you building a life of comfort? God’s call directs us out of our comfort zones.

6 KINGDOM BUSINESS SENSE

A New Business Model

n the mid-1970’s, going into business affected the individual JPUSA’s identity. To an already evolving list of distinctions (pastor, musician, writer, disciple, street evangelist), one now Iadded “painter” or “mover” worker. Instead of waking up early, going to worship, taking a Bible class, going witnessing, some members woke up (even earlier), participated in a prayer breakfast and scattered to job sites – soon in multiple crews. I remember riding to work on the CTA L-system with a bag of Durabond compound, as fine a dust as you can imagine. With every bump on the train, the powder would “puff up” in the air, making the other riders a little amazed that the CTA authorities would allow such workers on the train. We also roped 60-foot ladders on top of station wagon roofs and vans with “Rainbow’s End,” the title of REZ Band’s first album, painted on the sides and drove down Lake Shore Drive. As managers, we were learning how to run crews, and also to operate profitable businesses. We had to learn how to be more professional, yet not lose a main purpose for the business’s existence: to disciple its workers to new life in Christ.

Moving in a Tin Can About this time we had a day the crew in the moving business will never forget. JPUSAs have always been notorious scavengers. We

would pick up just about anything we thought we could use for the ministry. One of the guys saw a piece of wood, 4x4, about 16 feet long on the side of the road. Since there was a hole in the top of the 16-foot JP Moving box truck, from a previous accident involving a bridge, he saw it as a way to carry the lumber by sliding it up through the hole. The lumber was sticking about 7 to 8 feet above the cab. When we proceeded to drive down a local street with a bridge of about 11-foot clearance, you can imagine what happened! Yes, the roof of the truck opened just like a tin can. The men in the back thought they were being raptured. Needless to say, we started to think better about our scavenging policy when it came to the moving trucks, especially if they had a hole in the top. Our work crews were seen as extensions of our Discipleship Training School. And in all discipleship training, there were bumps and bruises. Learning to forgive each other at work was the charge on all of our hearts and minds, just as it was in our daily life together.

Dope and Discipline We were learning to respond rightly to all the challenging situations that arose from silly things our workers did or from situations beyond our control. We knew that we were to encourage, rebuke, be accountable to each other, confess our sins or problems on the same day, and pray with and for each other. We still witnessed to our Christian faith, only now on the job sites. Crew chiefs were accountable for pastoral care and oversight of the crew. One day after being put in charge of a crew, I went to a paint store and left two younger guys on the job. (I have learned to be more sensible since then). When I got back, I smelled pot. The crew had found some marijuana and were smoking it. We always tried to keep people in more accountable situations. These young believers had found marijuana in the house where they were working. It took some time to deal adequately with this situation. I relied heavily on the pastoral wisdom at JPUSA. The crew came clean in confession and prayer. Going into business also affected our community as a corporate body. Instead of emphasizing the traditional “mission” priorities and allocation of resources to the community, we now had to staff our growing businesses, provide for our workers and make decisions that enhanced the business as well. There were also times when a “solid business decision” had to be made that directly affected members of the community, sometimes in a negative way and sometimes for the better. For instance, having to open a business at 6:00 AM when many community members liked to stay up later the night before.

Work as Ministry As our financial status changed it had a domino effect: • New income meant new opportunities • Opportunities became obligations – which multiply • Multiplying obligations meant business must grow • Growing business requires professionalism • Professionalism brings pressure for “typical business sense” to rule, the business sense that sometimes puts business and money making ahead of people.

Our organizational structure evolved as we shifted from being exclusively a traveling outreach team in the beginning to a fully self- supporting community. Our pastors have made many efforts to prevent the separation of sacred and secular. The definition of fulltime ministry was expanded to include work crews; crews were encouraged to think of work as “ministry” by another, homegrown means. The mission businesses were placed under the same eight- person pastoral board as the community. The buck stopped with those unafraid to make business decisions according to Kingdom values, which are sometimes known in the business world as “bad business decisions.” (Putting people first always.) In many ways, JPUSA’s bottom line – “I will follow Jesus no turning back” and the battle to keep that bottom line had not changed. But in other ways, we entered a new phase.

Kingdoms in Conflict There is a conflict between typical business sense (TBS) and Kingdom values (KV). It is the conflict between eternity and time; between the seen and the unseen; between people and profit; between the flower of faith and the monster of TBS. This conflict plays itself out on many levels and is constant in its unrelenting effect on every one of the people involved in a mission business of any sort. There are conflicts of ideas and approaches on how to handle employees and deal with the customers.

Conflict in Ministry • Situation: A key worker is also a guitar player and songwriter in music ministry. He wants to perform occasionally during the work week to use his skills as God puts in his heart. • TBS: Tell him to perform in his own time or find another worker. • KV: Ask how his passion can be reconciled with the business. Solution: Worker schedules tours in the slow season, only after his co-workers have agreed they can cover his work.

• Point: Balance. Accommodation. Flexibility. Mutual Support.

Between Customers and Company • Situation: Customer: “Why do you have this warehouse guy with so many piercings and tattoos. He’s scaring me!” • TBS: Professional appearance is most important so the worker takes out his piercings and covers his tattoos or loses his job. The loss of one potential customer is enough basis for action. • KV: What about cultural traits? Doesn’t God look at the heart of us all? • Solution: Talk to the worker about his motives. Assure the customer of the worker’s skills and abilities, while being sensitive. If the customer is truly uncomfortable, be smart enough to move people around to avoid creating unnecessary problems for you and the customer. Since your focus is people, a balance of personal expression and professionalism is imperative. • Points: Sensitivity. Accommodation. Flexibility. Mutual Concern.

Tone Zone, Our Recording Studio • Situation: Refuses customers who produce off-color lyrics and crass music, although they would pay well. • TBS: Profit is the bottom line; they pay well, so look the other way. • KV: As a recording studio, we maintain a definite level of what will and will not be recorded. • Points: Moral Values. Standards based on Godliness.

Big Profitable T-shirt Order • Situation: A tattoo artist, a long-time customer, has just placed a very large order. The manager has been counting on this order in his spring sales budgets. The shirt designs include some off-color language.

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• TBS: The language is the customer’s business; we cannot afford to lose the order. • KV: Have an honest talk with the tattoo company owner about Belly Acres’ values. Explain that we appreciate all his business, but cannot do the job. • Points: Do not ever sway in your resolve. You are a witness to the world and your market does not dictate your morals.

Anger Management • Situation: Albert has a very hot temper and is losing it with other workers. He’s always repentant afterwards and desires to do right. • TBS: He is too big of a risk and cannot be working in this business any longer. • KV: Pastors: Hang in there with him. Get Albert to an anger-management program, possible at company expense. Today Albert shares business management with a team of others in one of our main businesses. Our pastors know the community depends on the businesses operating effectively for its existence, but also know that mission business is about people first, then the money that we can make.

JPUSA Pastors and Our Businesses The JPUSA board of eight pastors oversees all large capital expenditures, reviews any strategic decisions and helps direct crew personnel assignments, but turns over the day-to-day leadership to the business managers. Since the pastors priorities are always the individuals in the business, especially the most troubled, they always want to let individuals have another chance. This can be hard on the business during the period of time when the individual is working through a crisis.

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Six Things to Remember • Accountability – Everyone involved must work on being accountable to God, Scripture and one another. We must be accountable! Our faith encourages fellowship and rebukes the “Lone Ranger.” In our businesses we work to find people who share this vision and heart and encourage them to lead by example. • The Word as a Lamp - As we study and show ourselves approved by God, we can live with this view. Scripture is our guide. Proverbs and the Psalms are great places to rest every day. • Concentration – We need the mind of Christ and His Spirit. We are never able to plan our day perfectly. The best thought-out plans of man are shattered by our sweet Lord, because He wants our hearts to be right. He is always looking at our hearts in all things, throughout the day. Especially with issues that touch His truths, which we need to reflect on. • Decide Ahead – Bring ethical issues to the Lord in your quiet time, for in the midst of a difficult situation we are hampered by emo- tions. Decide what is most important in your day. Be ready for what He brings up. His agenda may not align with what we put down on our daily planners. I use a paper and ink daily schedule. I love to check off the points. Some issues need reflections, and I must move the points in question to another day and maybe discuss them with trusted coworkers or mentors before making decisions. • Do Be an Example – Do you live what you preach? Do you love what you preach? I often ask the Lord to help me be a person that is a living example of Christ. I also ask that I not be like the Pharisees, who have the inkling of truth but deny its power. I daily ask for His help to commit to integrity and holiness and live the lifestyle of His Son. He did not fail and we are His. I ask Him for wisdom always. • Faith - Our faith demands that we make every effort to cure the ills of our mistakes, and try to help the market place we are in. I am always blown away about who the Lord brings my way in my business. It might be a luncheon with a troubled salesman, a roofer who needs to talk about the wife who left him, or a troubled employee who cannot see the reason for being a part of a team. The Lord will always convict us to do right and share it with others who need to hear. The question will always be: Do you really love people? 102

Our Journey Up to this point I have told a story of JPUSA, the Jesus People USA community, and how it began as an outreach team and was drawn to Chicago to serve the needs of the poor and needy there. I have described how we developed businesses as means to help in its support and used those businesses to keep to the original calling of JPUSA, to disciple one another in the realities of Christ and His call on our lives. Thus, our businesses were mission-business by definition. I shared some lessons we all learned through the school of hard knocks, growing in business leadership while discipling our workers to share the vision of what is the true call of Christ in the marketplace. I also talked about the central conflict between typical business sense and Kingdom values and how it relates to the ministry. I suggested that this conflict in business is the same conflict we face as individual believers. I underscored that JPUSA’s journey in business has been guided by JPUSA’s journey as a community, both founded with a commitment to faith and discipleship. In both cases, we have been blessed with solid leadership by a dedicated pastoral board and the support of longtime members with the courage to trust God. Their leadership has helped keep the founding and development of our mission-business in line with Kingdom values. We learned that the best business leaders were the most diligent followers in the beginning of their service. These Christ followers became leaders and learned to serve with abandon to both “the least of these” and to Christ, in business as well as in direct ministry.

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Mentoring Do you know anyone in your area with business skills who can mentor you? What about someone farther away? Find a mentor. Even if it is someone in a different business field, you need to find a mentor – someone who knows more than you do; someone who will allow you to learn from him or her, ask questions and explore. Can you find a few godly people who you can use as a sounding board for making major business decisions? One of my mentors is an accomplished real estate developer-manager. His expertise is not in construction supplies, my field of business, but his advice on banking and financial matters – things I have had to learn the hard way – has been invaluable. Our relationship is characterized by mutual honor and respect . • Be a mentor. You need to share freely the business skills and knowledge God has given you with someone else. Offer your services, know-how or maybe just a phone call. Be an encouragement to someone trying to accomplish the same spiritual goals. Even if you are in a different field of business, what you have been given will be used. • Every mission/business would benefit from having a group of advisors who would provide oversight from a Kingdom perspective and who could offer constructive criticism. It takes mutual respect and accountability. This can be an outside board of persons who have no direct interest in your business.

Can you ask your pastor how you can help meet the needs of your church? • Your pastor may know which congregant desperately needs a job. When we have not been able to meet staffing needs from within JPUSA, we have often gone to local churches. When Lakefront 104 expanded to the southside of Chicago, we contacted a local pastor and hired a member of his church. He has been a great employee for many years! We frequently ask employees to circulate job openings at their churches. One employee of our former cabinetry business brought in two members of his church. We have also posted job openings at seminaries and Christian colleges and got a great bookkeeper that way.

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JPUSA SHARING WITH ROMANIA

Our Outreach to Romania

an you transplant your heart and vision overseas? I always believed that the best way to approach world missions would C be to teach godly business principles to local leaders to help them bring long term financial support for ministry (teach them to fish). The local people are the ones who know the greatest needs among their people. In 1991, as the general manager of Lakefront Supply, I met with Wesley Dolinsky, an artist from Romania who then worked as a roofing contractor in Chicago. He had just returned from Bucharest (the capital of Romania) where he used to live. He related to me that as he was standing on a bridge in Bucharest, looking at all the half-built, broken down, large apartment buildings, he cried out to God, asking, “How can I help my people?” He told me 106

that God responded, “Tim Bock.”

So he left Romania and came to Lakefront with his wife and told me the story. My first words were, “Who am I?” then, “Who are you?”. I was just a manager of a roofing supply company in Chicago and he was a roofer that I had known for years and had to train in proper roof application. “Are we going to do roofing in Romania?” Wesley told me that he had friends in high political places that wanted to help bring change to Romania. He also said that Romania was one of the best sources of raw gypsum in the world. These government officials had promised to give us the gypsum, help build a building for a drywall plant, and provide the shipping costs of the plant, but only if we would find a plant to ship there. Then I knew something crazy was afoot. I did not know much about drywall and I never sold it. I had no contacts with vendors. I only knew one drywall distributor, so we called him and told the story. The distribution company we called was owned by USG, the leader in drywall manufacturing in the USA. They happened to be looking for a site in Eastern Europe for a drywall plant. They already had a plant crated and ready for shipping. USG would give us the plant for free for a 51% equity in the business. They would manufacture drywall, and Lakefront would distribute the product all over Romania. This all was the result of one phone call to a USG distribution center that was made after Wesley’s visit. During a period of three to four months I met with many of USG’s top executives. The Lord seemed to be opening doors for a mission business in Romania. The president of USG agreed to do a market study. I made my first trip to Romania in January 1992, a few years after the revolution. The country was in total mayhem. The army was everywhere marching around with machine guns, and fearing another revolt. There was no food in the stores and the people were in despair. Even so, USG planned to give us a letter of intent for the market study. It all fell apart when USG filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the exact time that our agreement was in process. Incidentally, they have since reorganized and are now back in business. While this project was unfolding, the Lord put together an informal board for this project, all pro bono. Each one was excited to see what God was doing with 107 the giant USG and JPUSA/Lakefront, a small mission in Chicago. The informal board was: a finance banker, the president emeritus of A. T. Kearney (famous consulting firm in Chicago); a home builder; a very skilled lawyer in international business affairs; and a financier named Gary Ginther. Gary Ginter caught our vision to start a business for mission in Romania. His organization, INTENT, one of the forerunners of the Business As Missions Movement, was a great influence on me, introducing me to many missionaries and business people who gather to discuss how business can play its part in missions. Christy Wilson, a missionary to Afghanistan, was another person I met. He was known as the father of tent making in the late 80’s. The board asked the big question when USG came out of bankruptcy, “Was God calling USG to Romania or was He calling JPUSA?”

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Trip to Romania They all felt that the Lord was encouraging JPUSA to bring what we do at Lakefront in Chicago to Romania. Prayerfully, we went for it and were confirmed by our informal board of outside business people, lawyers and financiers, who agreed with our pastors, “for us to go and see.” During our three-week market study we met Adrian Olariu, who would become general manager of our Romanian operations. Constanta is an ancient city, founded by Greek colonists from Miletos in the 6th century BC, and now the major port of Romania on the Black Sea. All the ships coming and going from countries like Russia, Georgia, and Turkey reminded me of what Chicago must have looked like back 50-60 years ago. The salt water clung to my skin, refreshing me as I contemplated what a mission business would look like in a former communist country. Would it make it? Could

people buy into this mission business? Would it last? We were bumbling through Constantia with nothing that worked. Our video machine that we had brought from the US to show all

109 product applications did not have the right cords to connect to Romania televisions. Adrian later commented, “It is great what God can do with goofy beginnings.” Adrian had a dream of starting a supply house so that housing could be built for Romanians. It was also our dream to bring in western- style products. The most important visit was when a few of the members of the informal board came to Romania to verify “Tim’s findings.” We visited a very horrific AIDS orphanage called PC-3. The 50 or so kids were all dying quickly, most of them had barely been attended to or even been outside the orphanage. All of us were moved to give some money to meet their greatest needs. Adrian said,

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“No. Do not give your money, but bring me your business.” Adrian came to Chicago to check us out – He saw our hearts and we gained a manager. He saw that we were not about just making money, but about building a Kingdom business.

Together we started Lakefront East – very far east and called it NARCOM International (Nehemiah American Romanian Company). Actually our east location earned $300,000 in 1995 and over $3 million in 2008 -— very substantial earnings for a Romanian company. (Currency has been an ongoing problem. The Romanian currency was 700 lei per dollar when we started operations in 1994 and was 35,000 lei per dollar in 2006). We hired well over 50 Romanians through the years , many of whom are Christians. NARCOM teaches ethical business practices to all contractors who are interested. A training distribution center has been the focus of NARCOM. Adrian has helped many contractors and NARCOM workers start their own businesses, training them in ethical and Godly values.

OSANA Foundation Due to Adrian’s income from NARCOM, he could make a dream he had had for many years come true. OSANA foundation is a non- profit entity Adrian founded that has built and operated two homes for children infected with HIV/AIDS. From the beginning each house took 10 children.

OSANA has • Sent volunteers to serve physically handicapped children living in a bleak, state-run hospital. • Started Awana Club, a program for street kids providing them with love and an example of who Christ is. • Been involved in Operation Christmas Child, delivering gifts to the needy all throughout the Constanta area. • Helped poor families living in abandoned farm buildings with basic needs and skills to help them get jobs and begin to get on their feet. • Provided training and teaching for business enterprises.

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• Started an elderly citizen outreach to the neediest in the area. In May 1999, I took my then 12-year-old daughter, Emily, to visit NARCOM and OSANA. What I saw more clearly than ever was the workers’ hearts and attitudes of gratitude for Adrian, our general manager and the OSANA director, who was working for far more than money for Kingdom values. I asked a couple of them about their $50 per month salary: “How do you live?”

They told me that they are content with their income, pushing down their desires because “if we had more, we would want more.”

They told me that they are content with their income, pushing down their desires because “if we had more, we would want more.” They live for need not for greed. They see the needs all around them and are content to serve and find satisfaction in this while many other Romanians were pursuing large incomes to better their own personal living conditions.

Maintaining the Vision Our vision from Chicago was growing well in Romania. Our Romanian managers had all the same struggles to keep Kingdom values at the heart of the business. As the AIDS epidemic among Romanian children was coming under control, OSANA gradually came to realize a new vision was needed.

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OSANA had arranged for the adoption of as many children with AIDS, who lived in the two homes they built, as it could. As the remaining children lived longer than expected, due to advancements in medicine and care, the need for care and love beyond childhood became obvious. In fact NARCOM hired two of the original AIDS boys from the Rachel House. Teenagers with AIDS, who have the same desires and issues as normal teenagers, need a chance for a new life. OSANA added a life and job-training component to their program. One of the orphanage houses planned to be a business mission training center to assist young adults in the holistic mission approach of sharing the Gospel to Romania and the surrounding Muslim countries. The other orphanage house will be used for the mentally handicapped HIV children, who will not be able to be adopted due to their combined illnesses.

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The newest addition to the OSANA mission was the opening of a farm to train the AIDS kids who will not be adopted in a trade that is lost in Romania farming. Romania used to be called “the breadbasket of Europe.” During the communist regime almost all farmers were forced to live and work in the cities. Most of the traditional farming skills and methods were lost. Adrian has always had a desire to strengthen this segment of Romania life again. The farmhouse and

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the land were bought in November 2005, and it is a collaborative effort with Gilead Ministries from England, JPUSA and OSANA. Gilead is a Christ-centered recovery center in rural England and operates a mission-business dairy farm to help people come off drugs and alcohol. In partnering with this very successful and experienced dairy farm community OSANA could now get an opportunity to work with farming.

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NARCOM has owed JPUSA many thousands of dollars for years, we purposely allowed the debt to be paid down slowly and have given them the ability to reinvest NARCOM’s yearly profits into building their mission-business and the direct ministry. If we looked at our Romania business just as a business, we would have never seen Adrian’s vision to start OSANA to care for the poorest and the neediest of Romania: kids with AIDS, the homeless and elderly. Adrian knew the greatest needs in his country. Over the past 20 years, we have given whatever know-how and support we had in business, and Adrian made a mission-business to support direct ministry. We simply showed him a pole and a worm; he developed a worm farm and knew the best ponds to fish in. He also knew who needed the fish most and who could fish the best to make a growing, fishing enterprise. God gave the increase to all our efforts.

With the Romanian economy crashing and the construction trade dwindling, we had to close the doors to NARCOM. I believe God gave us a 20 year gift that is still being lived out in the two orphanages that Adrian built. One now is being run by another mission, and the plans of the second building is to be either a church or a house for the elderly. What is real success in Kingdom business?

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8 AT THE HEART OF IT ALL

s I work through this book, I ask myself this question: What is at the heart of it all for me and for the ministry of JPUSA? A So this chapter is really more an attempt to give you a picture of where I’m at. I realize that it is ever so important in our Christian life to keep our eyes on God in our daily priorities at home and at work. As a business leader I find myself in need of structure and input.

Getting Priorities Right For every Christian, their job/work should be missional. We each should try to live our whole life in holy obedience. Then every part of our life can be a vocation (not just the job), all in honor of Him from the inside and out.

From the Inside Out I have learned to let my devotion to God show in my service to my family first. After that comes my work, ministry and pleasure. I let all my plans move through my family first and make sure they are settled and at peace. Then I can move along through my work and ministry. Over the years I have learned that by living that way, I truly see God’s favor. My quiet time is a daily function. Without it my day comes to a halt. I spend time with God every morning, no matter how busy I get.

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My Wife, Aracely. I invest myself in her world every day because I am crazy about her and I let her know that. Every week we try to have a date night to unwind and find that peace we need together.

My kids. Each day I let them know that they are the most important kids in the world to me. I invest in their lives, too, and in their school. I became “a ballet dad” because my two girls love dancing. For my two boys I have had “Daddy Day” each week we go to movies, the park or do sports. They know that I love “Daddy Day,” too.

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Lakefront. I try to not let time manage me; rather, I manage time. I do not let the urgent destroy the important. I invest myself in the people of Lakefront first and then in the processes second. I have learned to split my time 80% on the people and 20% on the processes.

Direct Ministry. My involvement in our Romanian mission-business has been a great outreach for me, serving as a member of the OSANA board (see chapter 7) and as a consultant. A few times a year I share about mission-business as a speaker. Every so often I give a church sermon.

Pleasure and fun. My greatest rest is with my wife and kids, getting away with them to a hot tub or a three-wheeler ride, planting trees, going on trips each summer. Fishing, golfing and basketball are my passions, but I also love all other kinds of sports activity.

The Need for Structure in Daily Life You must know that no one person ever conceived or dreamed up what is now Jesus People USA. It started with a small group of radical believers who had abandoned themselves to Christ. These early leaders had a simple yet profound ability to look, observe and assess other organizations in the 1970’s and 1980’s to see what would fit the people God had brought to serve with them in order to form the community we are now. In 1990, desirous of more accountability as a fellowship, we sought out and received membership in the Evangelical Covenant Church. The following sketches illustrate how our seven separate corporate structures meld together to form who we are. The real story behind this is the servant-leadership spirit that founded and formed it. The other story is how the mentoring process touched people to become the next managers of JPUSA, God’s great experiment!

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No image completely encapsulates our organization, but the best one I’ve seen is in this picture of a seven- braided tree with different colored flowers in it’s top. When looking at this tree with many different trunks and roots, you see the beauty, but mostly forget that the roots are all intertwined and supporting each other. Another image that works is that of a Celtic knot, where each entity is enmeshed by its people with all the others.

1. Jesus People USA FGM – 501-D 2. Nehemiah USA LLC – Limited Liability Corp. 3. REM Corporation – Corp. 4. Jesus People USA Covenant Church – 501-C-3 5. CCO Cornerstone Community Outreach – 501-C-3 6. Zeppelin Design Labs LLC

You will find a more detailed Organizational Chart in the back of the book. As the community grew, the need for qualified leadership and accountability did also. The JPUSA pastoral board of now seven became the board of directors that helped define legally how we were to exist.

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We grew into two non-profit organizations: (1) The Church (first Jesus People USA Full Gospel Church; a 501- C-3 organization now Jesus People USA Covenant Church); (2) The community and its businesses (first Jesus People USA; now Jesus People USA Full Gospel Ministries). 501-D.

The community is recognized as an apostolic order under section 501-D of the Internal Revenue Code, meaning that members have elected to live as one large household, pooling their resources and paying expenses from a common purse. Instead of receiving salaries, members receive room and board and are taxed on equal shares of the community’s earnings.

Our businesses today and what we learn from them Here is what we have learned in operating each of our four existing businesses that make up the lion’s share of our income, and why we continue them.

Lakefront Roofing and Siding Supply: In 2017 we celebrated Lakefront’s 32 year anniversary. We invested many years in construction trades. We are all about people in all our relationships with employees, contractors and vendors. We have 30 paid employees whose lives are being touch by our standard to do business God’s way. Contractors often ask for prayer for family crises as well as other needs, and we post them and pray. We have shared the Gospel with upper management of major manufacturers by sharing where we live and why. As a founding member I am blessed to see that we have maintained our purpose and our mission statement all these years.

Friendly Towers: This mission business has integrated our entire community into it. When we first took over this ministry we did not know how it would work for the community. We have learned that we can care for 100 seniors in our home and invited them into community too. The community members often “adopt” a senior into their family. We have intergenerational living on our hearts. We have now run Friendly Towers Independent Living for 27 years, and

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God has brought so many seniors for us to love and care for over the years. They are now intertwined in our community history.

Belly Acres T-shirts: Is a great mission business to disciple many of our brothers. We mostly sell BA t-shirts to Christian bands. Through this avenue, the manager and workers have been able to speak into band members’ or customers’ lives in business and direct ministry.

Riverview Self Storage: This mission business was the result of us having 30,000 sq. ft. of empty space at our main Lakefront location. Since we began in 2003 we opened three more self-storage businesses. We had Bibles at our counter as well as a storyboard telling customers that the profits from Riverview Self Storage go to serve the inner-city poor. Our customer service has provided a personal edge in neighborhoods where self-storage was seen as simply an unmanned profit making enterprise. We sold it in 2014 and now rent to the new company.

Other businesses serving JPUSA ministries: The other 5 mission businesses are very important to us. They give a great sense of purpose and place to individual members within the community. We greatly appreciate them for what they are, a real support to our ministries.

Tone Zone: Has a mission and a business Tone Zone has really been a great support to all our GRRR bands to record their projects equitably. Several JPUSA sound engineers have worked here over the years helping to produce great music.

REM: This is our human resource company that creates a way for us to hire new employees; both the poor and the highly skilled at the same time.

Citizen Skate Shop: The mission is to reach out to kids using the city of Chicago’s best skate park, which is located just 3 blocks east of us.

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Everybody’s Coffee: A large coffee house welcoming our neighbors were we live. Many art shows presenting local artists gives it a flavor of local support.

Zeppelin Design Labs: We have been in the music ministry all our lives, to have 2 engineers attempt to create new & innovative products in this field was a desire we have had.

Financing Bankers and creditors always look to me, the money guy – where the buck stops. As Lakefront grew and became more complex and cash flow became more critical, I had to learn to understand company financing the hard way — through crisis management. Meeting Lakefront’s financial needs was so far outside of my experience and training that I have had to ask the Lord for wisdom beyond my years. He has always provided solutions to problems and professionals to mentor me. More than anything, God has taught me to ask and believe, trusting in Him as my Source. Jean Vanier reminds us that “in Community we’re always on the verge of a miracle and at the edge of disaster.” In my experience God has always met our needs.

Mentors and good friends It is vital in sound leadership to grow in dialogue. Mentors and good friends that understand your calling is life giving. Over the years I have gained a few true mentors and a group of close good friends. These are people who encourage and disciple me in my walk building businesses. That is what mentoring is about, to be encouraged and discipled to do the task at hand. One of my main mentors is Art Slavin. As I said earlier, he taught me how to present myself to a bank. He has been amazed at the growth at Lakefront, especially with our business in Romania. He has always been a special friend in business and we have a mutual deep respect. It has been crucial for me to have mentors with whom I can be brutally honest, who will tell me plainly when we are going astray.

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The president of Bridgeview Bank, Peter Haleas, took me under his wing; we got to know each other quite well.

These men, along with the pastoral board, have helped me in all large financial decisions.

Adrian Olariu the leader of NARCOM in Romania has also been very important as a friend through the years.

Servant Leadership James A. Autry describes servant leaders19 this way: • Authentic and humble; • Accepting to all he or she touches; • Vulnerable and open (even emotional at times); • Is 100% present – when you can get their attention, you get it completely; • Useful to the task at hand.

In the early days of JPUSA the board of elders met every day. Over the years these leaders developed many boards to keep things moving more efficiently. Through relationships built on trust, forgiveness, and honor these boards have shown grace and mercy all through the years. Humility and authenticity always won over pride and arrogance. Acceptance and a willingness to meet the needs of members have been key. We know that it is important whenever someone talks to one of the leadership that they be given our full attention in that moment. Using the book of Acts as a model, (particularly the early Church’s way of caring for widows in Acts 6:1-7) the elders of JPUSA, early on set about doing themselves some of the practical work needed in day to day community life. One would do bookkeeping, another began property management, another learned law, and another real estate. This hands-on approach helped the pastoral board develop a very practical form of governance. We all feel close to our pastors and know that they are approachable at any time.

19 James A. Autry, Servant Leadership 124

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” I am grateful that I serve alongside my brothers and sisters at JPUSA. I have seen servant leadership up close and all around me. When you live in an intentional community, you see each other when you first get up, then at work 8 to 10 hours and at night. You really cannot fake what you value. It has been so exciting through the years to see how God dealt with each one of us.

Pray and work hard All through the years I have seen people at JPUSA mentored in our vision of living communally. We have been taught that we can roll up our sleeves and get to work to start up new businesses or programs. When an existing business or venture sways off the track, we can help to get it back. It takes effort. You have to work hard, eat, drink, sleep on it, and wake with it.

Keep Kicking the Ball Forward We have a sense that God has called us to keep moving, that He can more easily steer and move a moving ship. When times looked quite bleak we saw God move and provide in miraculous ways. He has constantly kept us moving for over 40 years now and we are moving still. We never built a fence and said, “That is it, we are not going anywhere else.” Do not get bogged down with problems, keep moving in your vision.

Always Be Teachable Most JPUSAs are untrained in management skills. We have learned best by remaining teachable and finding people to mentor us in the skills and resources we lacked. In order to be teachable you have to be in dialogue with people around you and you have to keep building relationships. Get along and be quick to forgive and be generous in giving mercy.

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A day in my life, the rubber hit’n the road I like to ask people I meet “What is in your day?” The answer to that question tells me a lot about their daily walk and just an insight in how they grow in wisdom and grace. I arrive at Lakefront in my Toyota Pickup in the morning. I love to start my day by making the rounds, connecting with other staff in all areas. On some days before I know it I’m faced with all kinds of challenging issues. Below are some situations that did not all happen to me in the same day, but they could have…

The Talents One of the sheet metal managers was 8:00 AM frustrated by a slow moving worker. The manager thought the worker could do much more. I asked the manager, what if all Clyde has been given is 5 talents, and he is producing 4? At the same time you have been given 10 talents, but are only producing 6? He has outperformed you by more than 30%, even though you produced more units. Try to accept people where they are; do not judge them by output.

Trust Money to Him We have a large line of credit that would 9:00 AM get real close to tapping out in the winter when our customers would get behind and we would stock up with inventory for the season. I have to look at bills and brainstorm solutions. I should learn by now “the 10th of the month dilemma”. We have to pay almost all of our vendors by the 10th for a discount on our bills, and we give a discount to our customers if they pay us by then. I get tested every month. We always make it. You would think I would learn to trust the Lord in this, but as the bills get larger, my faith must grow.

From Shelter to Receptionist I walk by the phone desk and encourage 10:00 AM Tammy. She was one of the ladies staying at Cornerstone Community Outreach who 126

moved on to our second-stage housing program at Leland. She is now the receptionist cashier at our main location. This woman has been such a great example to me. She truly took the help we gave her and used it to the maximum.

Bibles I grab a cup of coffee and am blessed to 10:30 AM see two contractors picking up New Testaments.

We have Bibles at our counters now in three languages: Polish, Spanish and English. We have signs at all our stores telling about JPUSA and who we are. Most truckers get a trucker’s Bible. Our business cards have our mission statement on them, with the scripture “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” That has been the key word for us through all the years.

Vision Keeper As a vision keeper, I challenge all our 11:00 AM workers that we are truly serving Jesus every day by putting pallets of shingles in the back of pickup trucks, craning pallets of very heavy roofing products up 10 stories; fabricating copper gutters for the mansion down the block, calming an irate customer down because we promised 8:00 a.m. delivery and it is now 11:00 a.m. Ouch! These are everyday business functions, but they are transformed by the deeper call of the One whom we serve.

Missionary in The Marketplace I also know I am a missionary in my job, 12:30 PM to executives of our manufacturers (GAF, Johns Mansville, Owen Corning, Celotex, Certainteed, Tamko). I lead the prayer at our luncheon today. I feel a burning obligation and zeal to share my heart with these people, little or big seeds, to open the door for a witness, to always share what our business is all about with the mission work we do. It always seems to bring the question of faith up and it opens a door to share our hearts.

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Thanksgiving Collection The day before Thanksgiving I was 2:00 PM calling to collect a very old debt from one of our longtime, struggling contractors. I had not seen him for a while. I discovered that his wife had died and he was falling apart. I took time to minister to him and found that I had forgotten about the reason for the call. I wrote his debt off. I hope to see him whole one day.

Double Bonus Prayer One contractor had a son who was a 2:30 PM struggling soul. Many times the son looked as though he was high at our store. I told his father that I had a burden for his son and was praying for him. He marveled and asked if I could pray for him, too. I put them both on my prayer list and found that the father had quite an anger problem. His wife finally left him after he went into the hospital for the removal of his kidney. She took their twin boys with her. He came to us and asked for advice and counsel. His son seemed to straighten up for a time. They both are part of my personal ministry at work. He got into financial problems on top of all the personal things. After much prayer and time, my credit manager stated she wanted to forgive the debt. We hope and pray for God’s hand in this broken family.

Condo Scam Another one of our contractors was 3:00 PM asked by one of his customers, a building manager, to help him cheat the condo association by inflating the price. Although the contractor believed no one would find out, he was convicted to ask one of my managers what to do. We encouraged him that ethical practices will lead to a right standing before God. He submitted to this wisdom and, I believe, lost the job. We did, too. We are witness in our everyday actions, regardless of the consequences.

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The End of the Day At the end of my day I get back into my 5:00 PM truck and I’m pulling out of Lakefront’s parking lot.

I catch sight of the building in my rear view mirror and I realize that none of this would be possible without Jesus. He is our reason for being in business. He is my reason for living in the passion of what I am to do each day.

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Family • What are your priorities for your family and mission/business? I have three! They are strict and unbending: (1) Jesus, my first love; (2) my wife and kids; and (3) my work/mission. These priorities play out in my everyday life in the following ways: First, my quiet time each morning orders my mind aright each day. If I lost this time in the morning, His priorities would be lost in the busyness of my day. Second, when my precious wife and kids call me at work, I always try to take the call and enjoy the “distraction.” When at home, I refocus my zeal on them. Finally, my work is my mission. I believe I am (we all are) missionaries in the marketplace and all we do can bring a most powerful witness to bear that no preacher or evangelist can touch. Do not underestimate your witness. • Can you take your kids with you to your work or mission? I bring one of my four kids to work with me every once in a while to show them “Dad’s day.” (They seem to love the lunch and pop.) I believe they catch a glimpse of my priorities and my attitudes towards all those I deal with. We make lasting impressions on our kids; let’s imprint Christ’s heart in them. I brought my then 13-year-old daughter to Romania in 1999 and had the most memorable time, one we always talk about. She went back there in 2005 to serve for 6 months. • Do you struggle to leave your cares about your mission/business at the office? • Do you connect with your kids when you are home – a hug, a kiss, a conversation? My kids’ most precious gifts to me come when I arrive home from work: the glad shout “Daddy!” and a full-tilt run into my arms as I fall backwards on the floor. All four kids have done it and they have helped me to see our Father’s love for us and what He wants us to do each day for Him – run to Him and let His presence envelop us. 130

• Do you make family matters a regular part of your conversation with clients, fellow workers and employees? • Do you frequently talk about your family, ask about theirs? Making family matters a regular part of your conversation show what your own priorities are and encourages others in having right priorities. It also shows that you care about the person you are talking to and want to relate to him or her as a whole person, not just in your limited business roles.

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9 CAN WE BE CONTENT WITH DAILY BREAD?

Unless the Lord Builds the House

wanted to end this book with a few challenges for you and some thoughts that we have had about doing mission-business with God’s perspective over the years. Unless God is truly leading you inI your daily decisions, you could be building just another business. If you let God build the house, your example will influence far more people than you could ever imagine. We must trust God for his provision and find out where our treasure is. All through the years we have used this one scripture printed on our letterheads of all our businesses. This one scripture explains that if God is our center, then He will build a house for everlasting effect beyond our lives; eternally viewing mission and business devoted to our true heart’s desire.

Psalm 127:1-5 NIV Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves. Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

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Children as Our Focus Children are a main focus in this psalm because most fathers and mothers wear themselves out to provide for their family. We seem to miss that God is our provider. He is our base line existence. Think of that for a moment. Who gives you breath? Who gives you a sane mind? It is God. He is the only one who keeps all things living to provide everything we need. We as the earthly providers must never forget that God wants us to invest the most precious thing we have in our children and family; our time.

God as Our Provider My dad provided faithfully all my years growing up. What this psalm is saying, however, is that we are to have faith and trust in Him for our sustenance, not our hard work and long hours. We must be careful that we give the best care to our kids. He is the one who is our caregiver. He is the one who we are to be trusting

133 for our daily bread. Humbling, isn’t it?! What I wanted most from my dad was time with him. I really did not notice the material things that woke him up early and kept him out late, anxiously working. Man and woman, Dad and Mom, all of us who work and are the provider for our families, face it. We are to trust God. We are to know that it is not our striving that will give the abundance and security. It is Him and Him alone. He will be there if things start caving in on us and our family. With our healthy family surrounding us, we will not be put to shame when our enemies attack, our treasure will be safely in his hands.

Where is Your Treasure? In Luke 12, Jesus told the following story, saying “Friends, there was a rich man who thought all his wealth was his alone, and he planned for it for a long time. He had a problem -— his barns were not big enough. So he thought to destroy them and build bigger barns to hold “his” wealth. Just then, as he destroyed all he had to build bigger ones, when all was in disarray, he died.” Instead of having what he originally had, there was now nothing for his kids or relatives. The Lord called him a fool. “This is how it will be with anyone who stored up things for himself but is not rich toward God”. “Do not worry!! Not about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will wear”.

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What is in an Hour Jesus said that life is more than all these things. Why not consider how He treats the birds of the air. None of them are hungry. You are more important than they. Can you add an hour to your life by worrying? Why did the Lord use the hour as the thing to add to life? I would say that this is what most people struggle with, that there is not enough time to accomplish the things that they have to do. Well if you cannot do this simple thing, shouldn’t you stop worrying about the rest?

Taking Time to Smell the Flowers It is a joy to go “smell the flowers” with my kids in a large city garden nearby where I live. We go from petal to petal and marvel at His creation and the smell. I love giving my sweet Aracely flowers. She loves them and just appreciates them for what they are. Have you ever taken a walk deep in the woods where you come upon a most amazing field of flowers? Now, no one will probably ever see them. They are God’s touch on our earth. He is always abundantly with abandon blessing the earth with the wonder of nature, whether seen or unseen by man. “Don’t worry about eat or drink, that is what the pagans do”. He will always care for your body. “Seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well”. If you make Him the focus, He will give you all things.

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Let’s Make Purses Do not be afraid, He wants to give you the Kingdom. Perfect love casts out fear. Sell what you earned or possessed and give to the poor. Give what is most precious to you and you will see His provision as never before. “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” (Luke l12:33) What about purses? I am not saying that being poor is a goal or that to be rich is sinful. God is your provider and if He allows you to be rich or you have a gift in entrepreneurship and money making, go for it, and remember the money you make is His. Pray how you are to spend it. Purses are worldly things that carry things of the world. He says to make purses that will not wear out. Is this not done by His loving plan? He has the perfect life for you man, woman! This is a truth you cannot deny. Walk with Him and He will see you through. He says that this treasure will not be exhausted; no thief will steal the treasures you put into these purses. No moth or bug on this earth can touch them or destroy them. So how can this be? Because He said it. I challenge all of my readers to examine your heart and catch the revelation He is trying to give, that …...”Where your treasure is there your heart will be also”. (Luke 12:34)

Final Thought What is your treasure? Whatever it is, your heart is there now. If you sense that you are missing the mark, He is calling you back now. His grace is ready now to enable you to walk straight again. Friends, our challenge in this world is, first, to honor God in all we do. Make a priority in our lives with what He has given us. Do not let your priorities bend or break. If you see you are walking on a wrong path, stop, repent and come back to His priorities. He loves us and cares

136 for us better than anyone or anything. Be His with abandon and let Him direct you aright. I pray we adopt this prayer: Lord, break me, mold me, make me into your perfect way for our family, ministry and business life. Amen, so be it.

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