Alan Barnhart — The Reward of Doing Good Work
Alan Barnhart — The Reward of Doing Good Work
Alan Barnhart — The Reward of Doing Good Work
Alan Barnhart — The Reward of Doing Good Work
Watch as Alan Barnhart, CEO of Barnhart Crane & Rigging, explains how doing good work and building the kingdom of God can be done simultaneously — just as God designed us to do.
Watch as Alan Barnhart, CEO of Barnhart Crane & Rigging, explains how doing good work and building the kingdom of God can be done simultaneously — just as God designed us to do.
Values, Purpose, and Priorities
Alan starts by explaining the reason and purpose behind the business of Barnhart Crane and Rigging:
Our purpose statement that we tell everyone who joins our company – the purpose is to glorify God by developing people and encouraging them to use their skills and gifts in his service in in three primary ways:
- By doing good work
- By sharing our faith
- By generating money for the body of Christ
Alan explains that the priority of the business is people:
People are central. If you can develop people, that is an output, it’s a product… If a person comes to our organization and gets developed and leaves and goes somewhere else as a better father or a better business person or whatever, that's something we've accomplished rather than a loss. So we want to continually be figuring out how we can develop people.
Doing Good Work
The reward for good work is more work, and we think physically using our skills and gifts in God's service — whichever skills and gifts He’s given us — is part of bringing glory to God. And doing [that] includes coming up with a good business strategy or coming up with a new idea. Those things can be just as glorifying to God as preaching a good sermon or writing a Christian song...
We think that all people who are followers of Jesus are in full-time ministry. A few of us will get our paycheck from a charity and or a church, but all of us should be full-time trying to use our skills and gifts in God's service.
Sharing Our Faith
I embraced my faith, and I basically decided to live the rest of my life in response to what God had done for me. That's a message that we have to share. It's the best news in the world, and it's better than the cure for cancer, and we need to communicate it to our friends and our co-workers and our customers and our competitors.
Funding Ministry
The whole concept of stewardship – that everything I have has come from God, that I'm not my own, I've been bought with a price… That is what I need to figure out. I'm not an owner with rights; I'm a steward with responsibilities. And I need to figure out what God wants me to do with his stuff and the tools he's given me and the material things he's given me. It's all his, and I need to hold it with an open hand as a steward, not as a guy that has rights to it…
In order to protect ourselves against wealth, we decided to put a cap on our lifestyle, and we basically broke the connection between our income and our consumption. We said, ‘God if you choose to prosper this business, we're not going to see that as a call to increase our lifestyle. We are going to continue to live the same lifestyle for the rest of our lives, and we're going to see this as an opportunity to use that money to help other people and to further the Kingdom.’
Freedom to Build the Kingdom
Putting Godly constraints in your life in almost any area leads to freedom, and living a life without constraints leads to bondage.
We built in some accountability to our people. You see, it's easy to make a commitment, [and it’s] hard to stay with it over the years. So, as we were recruiting some people into our company, I said, “I want to tell you what our commitment is. If you join this organization, my commitment is [that] the fruits of your labor will not go to increase my lifestyle – it is capped. The fruits of your labor will go for Kingdom purposes…”
We decided that each year we would give 50% of our profit, and so [our first year] we had $50,000 we were able to give away. And we thought ‘this is amazing!’
God is not enamored with the commas and the zeros. We've never given away a nickel that God didn't give to us. We're just a conduit [for] what God brings in. We send out 50% a year. We take the other 50% and use it to grow the business…
So now we have a group of maybe 60 of us trying to figure out how to distribute the dollars that God keeps bringing in, and he keeps bringing in more and more…and you know I think this year it'll be about $50 million…
God can be trusted, and so don't don't feel like this doesn't apply to you if the commas and the zeros are different in your story – that you're not in the game. You know for us the first year, we were a very small business, and we watched God do amazing things with it. I’m not at all telling you, if you just do it our way God's going to bless your business. I don't think that there's quid pro quo, but I do think that there's basic principles of being blessed and doing things God’s way.
God's way works. He built us – He knows how we work best. So don't be afraid to do things God's way and do it together, and that is enough.
Resources:
Watch as Alan Barnhart, CEO of Barnhart Crane & Rigging, explains how doing good work and building the kingdom of God can be done simultaneously — just as God designed us to do.
Values, Purpose, and Priorities
Alan starts by explaining the reason and purpose behind the business of Barnhart Crane and Rigging:
Our purpose statement that we tell everyone who joins our company – the purpose is to glorify God by developing people and encouraging them to use their skills and gifts in his service in in three primary ways:
- By doing good work
- By sharing our faith
- By generating money for the body of Christ
Alan explains that the priority of the business is people:
People are central. If you can develop people, that is an output, it’s a product… If a person comes to our organization and gets developed and leaves and goes somewhere else as a better father or a better business person or whatever, that's something we've accomplished rather than a loss. So we want to continually be figuring out how we can develop people.
Doing Good Work
The reward for good work is more work, and we think physically using our skills and gifts in God's service — whichever skills and gifts He’s given us — is part of bringing glory to God. And doing [that] includes coming up with a good business strategy or coming up with a new idea. Those things can be just as glorifying to God as preaching a good sermon or writing a Christian song...
We think that all people who are followers of Jesus are in full-time ministry. A few of us will get our paycheck from a charity and or a church, but all of us should be full-time trying to use our skills and gifts in God's service.
Sharing Our Faith
I embraced my faith, and I basically decided to live the rest of my life in response to what God had done for me. That's a message that we have to share. It's the best news in the world, and it's better than the cure for cancer, and we need to communicate it to our friends and our co-workers and our customers and our competitors.
Funding Ministry
The whole concept of stewardship – that everything I have has come from God, that I'm not my own, I've been bought with a price… That is what I need to figure out. I'm not an owner with rights; I'm a steward with responsibilities. And I need to figure out what God wants me to do with his stuff and the tools he's given me and the material things he's given me. It's all his, and I need to hold it with an open hand as a steward, not as a guy that has rights to it…
In order to protect ourselves against wealth, we decided to put a cap on our lifestyle, and we basically broke the connection between our income and our consumption. We said, ‘God if you choose to prosper this business, we're not going to see that as a call to increase our lifestyle. We are going to continue to live the same lifestyle for the rest of our lives, and we're going to see this as an opportunity to use that money to help other people and to further the Kingdom.’
Freedom to Build the Kingdom
Putting Godly constraints in your life in almost any area leads to freedom, and living a life without constraints leads to bondage.
We built in some accountability to our people. You see, it's easy to make a commitment, [and it’s] hard to stay with it over the years. So, as we were recruiting some people into our company, I said, “I want to tell you what our commitment is. If you join this organization, my commitment is [that] the fruits of your labor will not go to increase my lifestyle – it is capped. The fruits of your labor will go for Kingdom purposes…”
We decided that each year we would give 50% of our profit, and so [our first year] we had $50,000 we were able to give away. And we thought ‘this is amazing!’
God is not enamored with the commas and the zeros. We've never given away a nickel that God didn't give to us. We're just a conduit [for] what God brings in. We send out 50% a year. We take the other 50% and use it to grow the business…
So now we have a group of maybe 60 of us trying to figure out how to distribute the dollars that God keeps bringing in, and he keeps bringing in more and more…and you know I think this year it'll be about $50 million…
God can be trusted, and so don't don't feel like this doesn't apply to you if the commas and the zeros are different in your story – that you're not in the game. You know for us the first year, we were a very small business, and we watched God do amazing things with it. I’m not at all telling you, if you just do it our way God's going to bless your business. I don't think that there's quid pro quo, but I do think that there's basic principles of being blessed and doing things God’s way.
God's way works. He built us – He knows how we work best. So don't be afraid to do things God's way and do it together, and that is enough.