The following is the transcript from an interview with Christ at Work Producer Tim Antkowiak, discussing how God is moving through Christ at Work. You can also watch the video above.
I'll just say where it started. I mean, we started doing a video for Bernie. You know, Caldwell Tanks, capturing what God was doing through [them], and the difference that he was making in a company that had been around for a long, long time. And we found it to be so inspiring, and people were so dramatically changed because of it, that Bernie started taking that story out to other different Christian business luncheons and groups and meetings that he had with people.
You know, they would say, well, “Here's what we're doing,” “Here's what we're doing.” So, we started capturing more stories. And when Bernie first said, you know, Tim, I think we need to make some more stories, honestly, in my mind, I thought we're going to get the same story 30 times. But that's not what's happened. As we've gone and captured stories, we found businesses all doing very different things, realizing very dramatic impacts that God could make when you said yes to bringing him into your workplace.
And so we kept creating stories, and we got to a point where we realized we can't just send out links to everybody. Why don't we bring all of this together in one place, create a website, set up a nonprofit, and have one central location where people can go for inspiration?
And there really isn't anywhere else like that. I mean, there are other people that sell curriculum. There are people who have conferences. There are organizations that have been doing things for a long time. But nobody was really looking globally at what God was doing all over the country and businesses of all sizes. We've got, you know, businesses like American Airlines, Tyson Foods, Texas Instruments, a lot of medium-sized companies, and a lot of small companies who can be very strategic about bringing God in and making a difference in their people and their communities.
And so it's been fascinating to see the scope of what God's doing. And what we're finding is that businesses that are bringing any element of faith into their workplace, they know what they're doing, but they don't necessarily know what the guy across the street doing. They certainly don't know what the guy across the country is doing.
You know, we've recently been to Seattle and Phoenix and Dallas, and I've got some calls in Atlanta, and we've been to Florida capturing the scope of God at work and businesses of all sizes all over the country, making a dramatic impact where he's invited to be a part of. And so that's what we're really doing, is trying to inspire businesses to take their first step or their next step, whatever that looks like. Some businesses have gotten started.
I've got a business in Texas. They do worship. They've been doing it for six years. I sent them our website and tried to set up a meeting. We were going to come down and capture a story. We don't have a story about a business doing worship once a month. They looked at the businesses in the videos that we've got on our website, and he was so inspired that he called me and said to me, “I can't do a video right now.” He said, “You know, we've done worship for over six years, but I've seen what God can do in businesses similar to mine all over the country. We need to start these three initiatives tomorrow. In fact, if you can introduce me to the CEO that I saw in one of the videos, I'd love to pick his brain about how he got started.”
And so, you know, somebody who thought they were doing enough, I mean, they’ve got Bible study and worship going on…was convicted by Christ at Work to say, we're selling God short.
We've not done enough to offer care and compassion to our people in the name of Christ.
And so that's what we're really here for, is to show the scope of what God can do if you just say yes and to give you a snapshot of what he's doing all over the country so you can bring into your own organization whichever elements you're comfortable with. And that's where it's gotten exciting.
We're not in the business of making videos. I mean, if we want to just make videos, we can have 500 videos. We're in the business of helping God open people's eyes to the possibilities so that he can make an impact.
You know, we were excited a few months ago when we launched the website and started getting a lot of people watching and seeing what's going on. That's exciting, but it's more exciting when you hear the stories that they've brought in elements that they didn't know about. Strategies are starting to be executed, and people are starting to be changed.
When lives on the assembly line are changed because of somebody in leadership being inspired by a video that we created so that God could come in in a new way, in a new dimension, and offer compassion and healing to the people, that's when we get excited.