Kingdom Culture | Kingdom Leadership Workshop | April 2026

 So good, Heath. Oh, man, and that tees up our topic so perfectly. It’s day three, y’all. We made it this week. I can’t believe it’s already here, and we’ve got a fun day planned for you up until lunch. And so thanks for being so great. I just wanna kinda remind us where we began. So we started talking about spiritual calling and the sacred assignment that we have, right? But even before that, some of you were here when our Holly Bietenbruch-Hope spoke on spiritual identity. And so we started really with ourselves. And then we said, okay, so our work is sacred and holy to God, and so He cares about the people, but we need to ask Him, Cal told us we need to ask the Lord about everything. Then we’re gonna go build a team. We talked about that yesterday. Then Brad comes up, and he goes, “Okay, so now as we’re building a team, how we relate to one another, how we love one another in this one-on-one, right, kinda leadership style is important.” So today, culture is gonna … We’re gonna take it a little bit wider, to every employee that’s in the company, and go, what does that mean? And so I just wanna start- Nonna? Yeah. I can’t eat your food today because I need to lose weight for the wedding. That’s no good you lose the weight. After you look a witch. Like a witch? Yes. That’s no good. Okay. Like that is beautiful. You’re really a beautiful girl. But I won’t. Yes, you’re beautiful. For me, you’re beautiful. Nonna? Yeah. I- So if you don’t know, when people look at my name, they’re like, “That, what? Jenna? Gianna? Gi-” I’ve gotten everything. Doesn’t offend me, and it’s because my mom is full-blooded Italian. Like, if you saw her, she is five foot tall, very dark skin, black, black hair. I mean, you would go, “Yes, she looks Italian.” But my mom basically adopted, uh, my siblings. I have three siblings. I’m the youngest of four. They were my dad’s kids from a previous relationship, and they all have names that start with J. Joy is the oldest, three letters. John, next, four letters. And then my sister Janelle is five letters. But Italian culture is very strong, and so an Italian name was a must-have in my family. And so she needed a name that started with a J and had six letters so that I would feel a part of that group, and that is how you get Gina. And I love that video of that little Ita- Italian nonna because it reminds me of my grandmother. You know, when she would send us money, my … She was from outside the Bay Area. She would send money, and she would send it, and she would write my name G-I-N-A. She was not gonna do anything that wasn’t Italian, okay? And so that is so perfect when I think about Italian families. I love … She’s in the kitchen. She has an apron on. If you know any Italians, you know they love food Everything is about mealtime and families being together. They also care what they look like. Um, my oldest sister, Joy, she’s 60 years old, and she just got baptized a couple weekends, um, ago in Dallas, so I flew there to be with her. And so my sister Joy, my sister Janelle, and I are there. We’re with my niece, and my mom is there, and she looks at my sister and she goes, “I’m so glad you curled your hair today. It’s just really terrible when it’s straight.” And I’m like, “Okay.” So you can see that that is just really true. Culture is really strong in Italian families. And it’s like, what is that about? I mean, it- that’s generation after generation. It just continues, um, and burns bright because culture is powerful. And so the culture you have in your organization can be just as powerful. And it’s kinda like a campfire. I’ve thought about this before. It’s like I always think about this early team at Beat & Bow that were sitting around this, like, campfire, and then the heat and the warmth just kind of rippled out to the other people as we came, and that’s what happens. It starts right with a small group, and then it ripples out through your organization. And so you have to think about what really is culture. What, what am I, what do I mean when I say that? Let’s start there. Every organization, number one, has one. It’s this kinda collection of attitudes, uh, beliefs, behaviors, values that are important to you. Those are some values, right, for Italian families. Family is number one. That is one of the most important values with Italians, and so we know that. But the world offers its own set of values, right? And you may have worked for… I’ve worked for companies that really they did value money above everything, right? Power, status, comfort. I think our culture, uh, really values busyness. It’s why he said the first thing I had to do was time. Because people value being busy, right? We feel like we’re productive just because we’re moving so frantically. We have this bias there. And to me, I always think about the fact that that sounds like the Roman Empire a bit, you know? The, the kingdom of the world is like the Roman Empire that we always hear about in scripture. But the kingdom offers another set of values. It’s joy, it’s peace, it’s justice, right? It’s kindness, stewardship. Those are very different types of values than we see oftentimes. I mean, the scripture says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Do you know how hard… Making peace, it’s, that’s an action. This isn’t about peacekeeping. Uh, my friend Corey Lusk always talks about this. You have to go make it. It’s an action. And blessed are the peacemaker. Blessed are the meek. Is that what you think about when you think of corporate America is meek, humble? No. And so a kingdom culture has to look different, but it’s like a garden And when I think of a flourishing garden, I just don’t know a better one than the one that’s just right up here. Uh, I don’t ev- I hope some of you got to see it this week while you were here. Uh, it’s a little chilly today. You might not wanna be out there. But that garden is stunning. Everything in it is flourishing. That’s all I think about every time. Everything has a specific place, has a spot, has a role in that garden to make it just like that. It’s so stunning. Even the rocks have specific places, and they have a role out there. The funniest part about this is, to me, is it sits in complete contrast to everything around it, and that’s what a kingdom culture is like. I mean, it’s the only thing right there that looks like it has any life. I mean, hello, West Texas. There’s a lot of brown. There’s a lot of gray. There is no color to this thing. And, uh, people see this garden, sometimes they go, “I had no idea that that’s what was here. You can’t even see Walmart.” You know? And it’s like, yeah, but the truth is, that took work. That didn’t just happen. Look at everything else around it. And so if you wanna have a kingdom culture, you’re gonna have to go and cultivate it where you are, and you’re gonna have to get your hands a little dirty because, uh, uh, Jamie Winship, he talked to us recently. He came this past year and spoke, um, to our board and spouses, and he was reminding us that the kingdom of a world which is like the Roman Empire, when you’re trying to reorder things into the kingdom order, there’s chaos in between. It gets a little dirty. Don’t stop. Keep going. That’s what you need to know. But if you want fruit, you’re gonna have to give it attention and care and cultivate a culture. So let’s just talk really quickly about shalom versus, like, s- this worldly success. The world advises you to prioritize yourself, right, over every decision, but the kingdom aims to do the best for the most people, individually and collectively. That’s the thing. That’s the hard part about leadership, and as your organization grows, you have to pull out to think about the collective group but not forget the individual that you’re dealing with, too. And shalom is a Hebrew word that signifies so much more than just peace. It is so much more. It’s not just the absence of conflict, right? It’s, um, right relationship. It’s right relationship with God. It’s right relationship with his people. It’s right relationship with his creation, and he wants to bring a shalom, a flourishing, to every area, even those brown parking lot, gray colors. He wants to do that, but it’s gonna take people. We have to co-labor with him to do that, to bring that kind of shalom. We have to be there And this is really about more, again, than just, like, um, no conflict. This is about a wholeness, being complete. We’re trying to go back to the garden. That’s what we want. That’s, those are the days that we want to live in, and we can bring heaven here to Earth. And so that can be our culture if we’re willing, again, to cultivate it right where we are. Because you already know this, but the kingdom is between your two feet. Wherever you are is where the kingdom is, and so you’re gonna have to go, and you’re gonna have to cultivate this where you are. So I wanna start by showing you the Roach family. This picture is, like, a year old, and I think that, um, the one in the blue, Liam, he’s now 5’8″ and a half, 5’9″, so clearly taller than mom. The little one, Colin, he is my height now, all in a year, you know. And that’s our daughter, Olivia, and then the only tall human in the, this photo is my husband, Andrew. Some of you have probably seen him. And I love these people. I love this photo. Even right now, um, our son, Liam, he’s on his seventh grade, um, field trip, and I haven’t seen him all week. And I mean, last night I’m just going, “Man, I miss him,” you know? Like, I’m ready for him to be home, and I’m not even gonna see him ’cause I have to fly out immediately after this. I’m like, “I’m not gonna see him for eight days.” To which my daughter goes, “And?” Siblings. Siblings. All that to say, like, have you ever loved people so much but just not liked them some days? Always give the example, my kids know if I say, “If you can’t be kind,” they finish the sentence. It’s, “Be quiet.” If you can’t be kind, be quiet, and they roll their eyes now. Uh, but the truth is, we would find ourselves talking to these little people that we love, but we’re constantly coaching them on the same things repeatedly, just over and over and over. It’s why they know that saying, because I’ve had to say it 100 times. And there was a day that Andrew and I were like, “Why?” We’re getting frustrated, you know? Like, just irritated, and it’s like, what is this? And what we realized is we were frustrated because they were failing to meet these expectations that we had never made clear to them in the beginning. We go, “What is that? We’re frustrated about this, so what does that mean to us?” And what we realized is we had never clearly kind of set these expectations for them on how we were gonna behave in our home. And so we decided that it wasn’t fair, and we were gonna come up with some Roach family house rules. And I think you need to do this because house rules can become a blueprint for peace. What they do when you’re defining your house rules in your home or in your business is they allow people, there’s a predictability in them. So there’s a safety for me as a team member or employee because I know what the expectations are. They become this blueprint, and so there’s safety in that. And the or- you know, leaders, this is what we do. We bring order from chaos. That is what we are doing. And house rules, they establish order. And so these are the house rules in our family. This is what Andrew and I came up with. Number one, we are kind, ’cause that’s why we were frustrated, right? The kids weren’t being kind. And so we’re like, “Okay, that’s clearly something that we value ’cause we’re talking about it constantly.” And then we take responsibility. That was another thing that we noticed all of the time we were talking about… We were talking about, “Hey, it’s so important for you to take responsibility.” We had seen actually in our families and in our own lives when we did not take responsibility or ownership of our actions where it had been really unhealthy for us. We’re gonna serve others, we’re gonna laugh, and we’re gonna try new things, and this is, signals just who we are in our home. Now, as you’re thinking about this, these might not be the words that you would use for your home, and they shouldn’t be the words that you would use for your home. But just like a home, you need to provide clarity for your people in your organization, and you need to develop your core values. And so I’m gonna spend the first part of this talk talking about these, ’cause you’ve gotta define them, defend them and celebrate them wherever you are. So this is what we do even in our home. But these are things that are gonna be unique to you and your group, right, that have kind of grown up organically over time. Andrew and I didn’t go, “Well, man, we hope that we would enjoy to try new things.” No, no, no. Andrew Roach, he brought that into our home. I grew up in the same house until I was 18 years old and came to Lubbock, Texas. Andrew had grown up all over the world, and so he had tried new foods. I remember the first time I saw him eating curry. I’m like, “That is radioactive. Nothing should be that color. What are you doing?” And of course, now it’s one of my favorite meals. And so he’s taught me this. He brought that here. And this is how that goes. You know, there are things that have grown up organically that each of you bring as a senior leadership group. You’re gonna determine this together. This is how this works. Um, yes. And so limit the number of values, though. I do wanna say this ’cause I’ve seen some places that have 13 core values. And I gotta tell you, asking our kids to live up to those five is a pretty lofty goal some days. I mean, you think about that Take responsibility, that’s not an easy thing. Serve others, try new things. I mean, get uncomfortable. And so you have too many, and it just starts to become this kind of propaganda. And so if, if everything is important, we know then nothing is important, and so those become valueless over time. And I think, um, also what it can do is it can cause people to start striving because you’re trying to accomplish all of these things, but in the name of what? Not everything is important. But for our family, those things were important. That was how you’re gonna behave when you’re on the basketball court, when you’re at volleyball practice, when you’re at school, when you’re talking to your teacher, and how we’re gonna treat one another. Yes, even your seventh-grade brother that you have not missed this week, you know? And so that is how we’re gonna do this. But I would just say limit them. Number one, people should be able to repeat them. They should know what they mean. 13 of those, trying to understand that, oh my gosh, how complicated is that? That is just crazy. And these are things that we’re gonna get off the walls and put into daily conversation. You know, for us, these values aren’t gonna be something that… I keep thinking of those pictures that show, like, consistency, and they have some sort of really thoughtful photograph with them. This is not what we’re talking about. We have our core values on our walls in a few places, and sometimes it’s like, “Well, that just looks like a good spot to put them,” right? We’re gonna get them off the wall and make them daily conversations because we’re gonna actually walk these things out, but we have to define them first, and they just, those values, they mean nothing unless you actually are living by them. It’s why we had to talk about accountability, ’cause we are accountable to them. Everybody is accountable to them. It does not matter who you are in the organization. We have agreed to live by those. My favorite example of this is when I tell you integrity, communication, respect, excellence. Aren’t those really good things? Those actually sound like really, really good values that you should have. But they’re meaningless when I tell you that they were the values for Enron. I mean, they were manipulating things constantly. They lacked accountability. Recently, we were talking about WeWork and their CEO. He wasn’t living up to any of their core values, and that’s why accountability is so important, and we have to model these things. And here’s the cool thing. When you’re in a kingdom culture, your values should reflect the King. So when you’re walking them out, it’s your faith expressed, right? That’s what’s happening. As we’re modeling them, we’re modeling kingdom things to people, and that’s why they get to live under the covering and the fruit of the kingdom And the truth is, you’re not gonna have policies for every scenario. You’re gonna… Don’t we li- we like those. We always wanna go back to a policy or a process, but core values are like a compass for your team, okay? They’re not a GPS. They’re not gonna tell you to turn right here, turn left there, okay, another left. But they become this compass for your team, so when you’re encountering situations which you never have before, they serve as a guide to you as you go along. It’s so fun to watch these things ripple out into your culture, and then you hear things that are happening that reflect your core value. That’s what happens for us now. It becomes contagious, right? And as you define them, you’re gonna need to take them, though, and test them. You need to test them with the people that are thriving, those flourishing people that are in that garden. You need to test them and go, “Uh, okay, are these things that are actually core to that group? Do they get frustrated about the same things that we get frustrated with?” You know. And here’s the thing, our core values aren’t any better than anybody else’s. It’s just who we are uniquely, and how we’re gonna ri- have our attitudes, our behaviors, this collection of those together, how we’re gonna treat one another. But you gotta test them. And then you need to look at some of the people maybe that you’ve had to prune out of your garden and see were they lacking some of those things. You’re just trying to test them and make sure that they’re true, so that when you’re walking them out, you know, you can identify the right people to even join the organization. We did this, I can’t believe it, but it’s been 15 years since we defined the core values of our organization, and what I loved is the, the board at the time allowed our management group to join into that conversation. And I think that’s really healthy, you know, to go, “What is our core? What are our core values? What do we, what do you believe is our core values?” And they allowed us to gain, like, give insight from our perspective on what we saw, and then we’ve just carried the banner, right? Like it was our very own. I didn’t get to decide what those core values were. Don’t hear that. But I did get to have a voice in it, and then that team decided what they were, and then we started carrying those out. And one of the triggers during this time that became really profound to us was we had a construction team member that was struggling to get his work done. And the, the manager at the time, oh, was struggling to bring accountability because he’s like, “He’s this faithful guy, you know, and he’s a former youth pastor.” And then one of our board members at the time, John, asked him, he goes, “Are you saying we have a culture of not getting our work done?” And I just found my, uh, my orientation packet from my first week here at Beaten Bow, which was almost 20 years ago, and I’m just telling you, excellence has been at the root of everything we’ve ever done. If there was one core value I was certain of, it was that we got our work done and we did it well I had never been a part of a team that was as excellent as the team I was on, so that question was so silly because no, that isn’t the culture that we had. And so in that moment, what we recognized is the people that we had asked to leave, and the people that were flourishing, there were Christians on both lists. So it’s just, a Christian is a person, it’s not the culture, right? And so we need these core values to help guide us. And so, um, but you should know, we don’t only hire Christians here. That’s just not what we do. This isn’t about being a church club or a holy huddle. That’s not what it is about. Anybody can join the organization as long as they value the same things that we value. Now, they reflect the King, but anybody can have those things. Excellence, oh my gosh, we have some of the most excellent people, and I don’t even… I don’t know about people’s faith. I don’t know. I’m not, we’re not tracking where people go to church, okay? That’s not what this is about, but our culture should reflect the King and his kingdom, and then everybody is welcome and invited to join if they value the same things that we value. And we just don’t wanna only hire Christians. Man, I can’t even imagine my life, what it would be like if that was the case. But leaders, you are the culture keepers of the organization. You know, if the people make the culture, then the leaders are the gatekeepers. You decide who gets to come in and go out, and that is important. And that’s why we have to have clarity on those values, so we know who should we let in, who thinks the same. Cal will always say, “You’re just as quirky as we are,” when we have new employees. “Hey, it’s like you’re, you’re here. You’re part of the team. This isn’t another interview when you’re hanging out with us.” But it’s like we’re all the same kind of quirky. It happens to be there’s a lot of us now, Cal, that are all a little quirky. But leaders have to model, reinforce, and correct based on this, and we’re actually, in our breakout session, we’re gonna take this and, and tell you lots of stories really about our culture and our core values and how they have guided us over time. But we are gonna call people to hold, to be accountable to what they’re doing. And I’ll never forget, um, when we were on that management team. Our management team got pretty large, um, after a while. In 2011, it started getting pretty big, and then in 2012, I was on a Beaten Bow trip and I got a phone call from my leader at the time, Carey Ritchie, and he called me and he said, “Hey, Gina, I just wanted to let you know that we have decided we’re gonna create out of that leadership group, that management group, we’re gonna create an executive management team, and we’re gonna have four roles on that team.” And I just was waiting for my role. Which one is mine? What job is he gonna give me now? What do I get to do? And when my name was never mentioned in those four I honestly was shocked. And for me, that moment became this promotion for four of my friends and people felt like a demotion to me. And I would like to say that I handled that well coming into the office, but I didn’t. And so one day, Rick Bietenboeh sat me down, and he had what is called in our culture a 911. This is an emergency. And I’m gonna tell you, you’ve heard, the people you’ve heard on stage this week, we’ve all had one, every single one of us, and so, ’cause it’s about restoration. This isn’t about a way to move people out. This is about how do we restore people. And he said, uh, “Are you submitted to this new leadership team?” And I’ll never forget, I told him, “50/50.” And he said… He let me talk, and he listened, and he heard me out, and then he goes, “Hey, that’s great, but tomorrow it’s gonna be 100.” And that is what kingdom leaders do because that is critical. Submitting, right, to one another is a kingdom thing. And so that’s what he’s doing. He’s called, called me to hold an account for my work, and so anyone that is unwilling to commit to the house rules has to be removed. My brother, he was a bit rebellious. My poor mom, she had lots of rebellious kids, and he was really rebellious. And I remember he was just making some really poor decisions, and because I’m so much younger than all of my siblings, uh, she, my parents just knew they couldn’t allow him to stay. He would not follow the house rules, and so guess what? He didn’t get to stay. And my parents, I remember them kicking him out of the house, and it’s because anyone who’s unwilling to commit, they just, they can’t stay. And that’s what Rick was saying. “If you’re gonna be this way, you can’t stay.” Because we value unity, which means submitting to one another. But the truth is, a flourishing garden cannot happen without pruning. It ha- there are things that have to be pruned, and so that’s what we do. But the best way to reinforce culture, the most fun way, is to celebrate what’s core. Can’t we just do more of this? But we don’t. For some reason we don’t. We are s- we have such keen eyes to all the things that need to be fixed, right? All the things that are going wrong. This, like, wrong spotting is so much easier because you have to slow down. You have to see people, see what’s going on, right? Open your eyes to what’s happening. I’ll never forget when Rick was really sick, we were having s- some major issues in our accounting team, and surprise, surprise, I am not an accountant. I don’t need to be an accountant for us. And I was asking him, “How am I gonna know what’s going, what, like, how do I know what’s going well?” And he just said, “Go look for it.” Wow. It’s like that video said earlier this week, you know, what you seek, you will see. If you go look for things that are going well, you will find things that are going well. If you go look for everything that is going wrong, you will find what is going wrong. So let’s go look for what’s going right and how our core values are being lived out, because what’s celebrated is repeated, and that’s the best way for this to happen. And so we try to do this in really big and small ways. We just try to celebrate team members that are walking and living out these cultures and, you know, our culture, and then we tell stories of it so people can try to connect those things. Like, what does excellence really look like to us? And then they go connect a story to it so that we can multiply it. That’s what happens. We’re looking for multiplication. But however you wanna do that, you know, Holly, she would always… We always tell the story of her. She’d be in a meeting, and she’d be on her phone the whole time, and it wasn’t that she wasn’t listening. It was the opposite. She would be texting a team member because she would say, “Hey, I’m in this meeting with your leader, and they said this about you. I wanted you to know all these good things that they were saying about you.” You know, she did that for me yesterday. Same thing. How much time did that take? Not a lot, but she was celebrating what is core to us, and that is so good for us because then we’ll go multiply it. Don’t… That makes me just wanna keep going, right? It’s so encouraging. So when we s- consistently celebrate what’s core, we name it, we honor it, and we get to reinforce it within the culture. And when those roots deepen, they start producing something more, y’all, than just good behavior or strong performance. They start producing a flourishing. Rick would… Rick, I remember, as he was, uh, helping, like, Schubert Mitchell, the home builder that I mentioned a few days ago, he told Damon Schubert, he said, “Hey, Damon, go build good people, and they’ll build good homes.” That’s what it’s about. All the things will start flourishing, and that’s the ultimate kingdom culture, right? This healthy workplace- A people where they have relationships, where entire communities thrive. That’s what can happen. That’s what the Bible calls that shalom. So let’s shift from celebrating internally and go, “How does, how does this roll out? How does this ripple out into the other people?” Because we wanna work towards that shalom or that flourishing, and it’s this holistic approach, um, to the wellbeing of those in our sphere of influence, but not just our people. That’s what happens sometimes, you know? We start to only think about the people that we’re proximate to all of the time, but this needs to ripple out to so many people. We’re not just responsible for the people in our care. Our community should be better. We’re trying to flip everything upside down, right? We have to be good stewards, so that means we’re gonna have to make some challenging decisions for our people, but it’s in the service for other people. Recently, we’ve had to do some restructuring that was really challenging and hard, and that was in the name, actually, of stewardship because we needed to be better stewards because we’re serving people. We serve customers. And so it’s just not all about us. And so that’s what happens in a kingdom culture. You don’t think about yourself, right? You have to… You’re pursuing humility at all cost and going, “What does loving my neighbor really look like?” And y’all, we– The stuff that goes on here is such a blessing, and you should know, we’ve been on the receiving end of this for many years. A lot of these were not our ideas or our original thoughts. You should know that. We learned from really great leaders, and we are the second generation that get to carry this on. But I’ll never forget, um, one of the stories that I just think about all the time is in the Permian Basin in Midland and Odessa. We have– We’ll have lists of hundreds of people, and then they just go away overnight, you know? It’s this really kinda crazy market all of the time. And I remember we had lists of people. We had, like, hundreds of people, y’all, would be on our list in, in cases, and that is hard. You’re trying to love people. 300 people on a list when you build, like, 300 homes in a year. They might not actually sign an agreement for a full year. And you know, most of our conversations were how do we care for them? What does that look like? No, we shouldn’t take their deposit. I mean, every day we were going, “How do we love these people well?” And then we are a cost plus builder, so we add up all of our costs, right? We put a margin on top of it, and that is our price. And I’ll never forget, we were doing that, and Cal’s like, “Well, our costs went down,” and so our price was going down. And we’re like, “Okay, that’s great, but those are costs, right, on homes, like, starting today.” And then we were thinking, “Yeah, but okay, the person that signed yesterday, I mean, they could come in and get that home today for that. Does that feel right?” And we made the decision to go back to anyone that was already in contract. I mean, look, this is a agreement. They have signed it This is a binding agreement. And I remember our team came together and decided, man, that feels like the right … I don’t even know whose idea it was anymore, but somebody goes, “We should pass that savings on to everybody i- that has not closed yet.” That was to the tune of almost $3 million in net profit. Because when the kingdom is a priority, those are the type of things that you do. It’s not just about you. And that is such a blessing and an honor because we’ll sit in room sometime and we go, “What if that was my 84-year-old mom lived in that home? What would I hope that the company would do?” Or sometimes it’s like your daughter, like what if my daughter was just, like, trying to buy her first home? What would I hope that they would do? And that’s how we think about things, and it happens here all the time in some of the coolest ways. You know, are we a trusted partner to people? To our trade partners, can they trust us? Can they trust that we represent them and honor them well when they’re not in the room? I heard once, you know, love looks like honor. So when you’re honoring people, you are loving them. And do they trust us? And there are so many things that over the years this group has done, like, um, we give loans to trade partners at 0% interest. We wanna help their businesses grow. We don’t need to make money off of that. How can we serve them? How can we help them? How can we make their job easier? My friend Corey Lusk has been doing that for 20 years, going, “How can I make their jobs better? How can I see them? How can I love them, pray for them?” That is a kingdom culture rippling out all the way. ‘Cause Shalom doesn’t choose favorites. There’s no favorites in the kingdom. But when you fix roofs that no one asked you to, or you give a trade partner a, a loan with no interest, you’re activating the current of the kingdom right there. You are planting kingdom seeds all along the way. And this talk is so ironic that I’m up here. I always tell people this is a big setup, you know, that I get to be up here talking, um, about this because I’ll never forget, I joined this company almost 20 years ago and a friend had sent me the link to the job. I got online, and I’m, like, looking at the website and I see this word “ministry.” And I’m like, “What is that?” Never heard that word before, actually. Click on it. There’s a group of people. They’re praying. There’s some sort of scripture there, and I remember thinking, “Well, they must be nice people.” They must be nice people, you know? Like, if they’re gonna put that on their website, surely they’re good people. And so I applied. Um, and what you need to know is, uh, my dad, we were in the military. I grew up at Sheppard Air Force Base. We were a military family. I loved being a military family, but the mi- being in the military is very challenging. And some of you may have been in it, and so you’re aware, and families get split up all of the time, and that’s what happened. And so I always tell people my dad was busy running around with women, not running around with me in the backyard. And so he was getting into things he didn’t need to get into all of the time, and that came to a head when I was 16 years old, and he had yet another affair with a girl that I went to school with. We were in the same grade in our 4A small school. Her mom, and she also was married. And so that just blew up in my home, and my mom fought for her marriage. I just watched it. I watched her get torn apart. Ugh. I can s- I still have visuals of that. Um, and I could not forgive my dad for a long time ’cause he was not a good person. He was very fear-based, and, and if you’re in the military, right, there’s a right and wrong, and that’s how he was. Right and wrong. His rules were the rules, okay? He rules, period. And that’s how he was. My earliest memory is my sister that just got baptized, of him holding her up by her throat in our hallway, and I was probably three years old, all because he didn’t want her to date someone that wasn’t white. And then I have a memory of him coming in and, you know, ch- I remember him chasing me into a bathroom one time, locking myself in the bathroom, and my mom protecting me. This was not a good situation. And you know what the truth is? I didn’t even know how bad it was. But that’s what I came here with. You know? I came here… My dad died not long before I started here. We never got to restore our relationship. And so then I enter this building, and I meet this man. Oh, man. Sorry. These are for me, if y’all don’t know. Um, that’s Ron Biedenbach. You’ve seen his picture up here. Gosh, I’ve thought about him so much this week. But he was at the door when I got here on my first day, and he said… He knew my name. I had no idea who he was, by the way. He just introduced himself as Ron, and he’s like, “Gina, we have been waiting for you. We are so excited that you are joining our team. We actually read your creative writing sample in our all-company meeting yesterday.” What? Because when you love people, you celebrate the gifts in them. Ron did it in the first few minutes that I met him. He did that for me. Gave me a hug, said, “Hi, my name is Ron,” and man, phew. That began a love affair with this man. I mean, I’ve just loved this man so, so much. And so when I contrast this loving father, and I come into this culture of people that love the Lord, I don’t know what to make of it, you know? And I remember even not long ago, I was arguing with God, and I’m like, “How am I supposed to really know you, God? If I never had that experience, I never had a loving father, how do I know you?” And he put Ron’s face in front of me Because he was like a dad to me. Here’s one of the text messages from him. I just can’t get rid of this. I cannot let some of these messages go. And this is him, “Thank you, sweet Pete. You’re a precious daughter whom I love.” After this, after this text exchange, which I love it, he, he got to try a La Petite dog from the cafe, and he was just blown away by what we’re doing in the cafe. Just so sweet. You know, I would go have lunch with Ron every single Thursday that I could. But not long after this message, his breathing was struggling so much he couldn’t… We didn’t get to connect very often, but we did. He became this example of a loving father. You know, he and his wife, they unpacked my kitchen. I bought a beaten bow home. Surprise, surprise. And I remember Connie was like, “Hey, let me unpack your kitchen.” You know, they would just do small things for me, big things for me. And I’m like, “I’m not letting Connie Beatenbaugh unpack my kitchen. Is she crazy?” You know, I’m like, “Sure, Connie.” And I’m like, “No way.” Looking at my husband going, “She– No.” Well, guess who unpacked my kitchen? And then there were times like our son Liam, that’s gone right now. Uh, when he was born, he was born on November thirtieth, and that was a Friday, and it was, uh, one of the days where we had our Christmas open house where Santa and Mrs. Claus, we give free pictures to the community, and I mean, hundreds of people come. And Carrie Ritchie, uh, that’s on our board, and then Holly, they would always play Santa and Mrs. Claus, and I mean, for hours. And I don’t know if y’all have ever done that, but watching them exhausted me. I mean, you have to smile like Santa and listen for four hours. I mean, that s- sounds easy, but it was not. And as we are, uh, getting ready and we’ve got little Liam, you know, he’s born that day, got little Liam, we’re tucking him in, we just hear a , and there are Santa and Mrs. Claus, and they said, “We just wanted to make sure that Liam got his first picture with Santa today.” I mean, they drove to the hospital after sitting for four hours with hundreds of kids, ’cause love shows up. It just shows up. It gives its time, and it’s so precious, and it changes lives. And love was just central to everything that they did. That’s why I love Heath’s video so much, ’cause it’s right. It wasn’t this like big angelic witness. It was just many, many moments over time. They were just always there. Always there. He didn’t preach to me. He just loved me. But then when I would go, “Why? Where is he getting that from? What is his source?” Well, who would he point to? Every time he would point to the Lord. Every time. Every time Holly would point to the Lord. When she came and prayed for my mom before my mom had surgery because she had cancer, Holly was there. And I have a hundred of these stories like this, but time. I mean, love just shows up for people. And so Andrew, he’s been As a spouse just watching this all happen, neither of us really knew anything about the Lord when we came. I’m the, I’m the one that was like, “Uh, I know two Bible characters,” ’cause I went to Catholic school, Noah and Mary Magdalene. That was about all I knew when I came. And so Andrew, that, he knew that about me, and here we are walking this journey together. And so I just want you to hear from a spouse what this has been like, this journey. And there’s Andrew, my husband. My kindest person you’ll ever meet. Zero judgment, loves every person he meets, but does not believe in God. Husband. But he cannot ignore the way he has been loved on, cared for, prayed on, and prayed over, and he goes to church with me every Sunday. He actually serves at our church every Sunday. He’s actually in a small group. God is doing something. God gave me a vision when Olivia was a baby that they would be baptized together, and I hold onto that. He still doesn’t know that, so don’t tell him. Uh, but I know that God’s promises are always yes and amen, and so I know that. And one day I tell you that, so one day you’ll see on video him standing here maybe giving his testimony about how a spouse was impacted by this culture and came to Christ. It’s one month to the day Andrew came to the Lord in Europe, and it was ju- it’s just been the biggest miracle in our lives and it’s changed everything. I grew up in a Mormon church first. Uh, my dad was Baptist. We lived overseas. I went to a Shiite mosque, a Sunni mosque. I went to Buddhist temples. All my friends were different religions. You know how confusing that is? Most of the time I was talked at frequently. “This is the way you’re supposed to believe,” whether it was Christian, whether it was Buddhist or Muslim, didn’t matter. Most of what I witnessed most of the time was more religion than it was love. And then I was never talked at here, and that’s a big deal. I think, you know, now I feel like I’m the person I’m supposed to be versus when I was then. I let all this other stuff get in my head that shouldn’t have been there. You know, uh, I don’t work at Beaten Bow. I I don’t work at Beaten Bow. That, that’s what you need to know. Um, I haven’t worked there, but as a result of it, the, I am changed. Yeah, so powerful. But let me tell you, that was 12 years of prayer. And think about where you were 12 years ago. That’s a long time. You wanna know what I had? A community of people, though, that believed with me, that prayed with me. On the hard days, showed up for me, you know? taught me things along the way. It was wild. I would hear something, somebody would teach me something. They’d go, “You know you can, uh, pray for visions.” I would start praying for visions, you know? All of a sudden I would… Uh, Holly had anointing oil. I was anointing our bed. I was laying my hand on Andrew’s pillow. “God, give him dreams and visions. Let him know that you’re real.” For 12 years, 144 months. God is always working. Craziest part is I got offstage that day, and I was the table coach, and the lady said, “Uh, God told me he’s just waiting on an invitation.” You know, in our, in our flesh, in our natural, I was like, “I don’t know. You didn’t see him at church this week. He wasn’t singing during worship.” Like, you know, I just… All that, that doubt kind of talked. But I still believed. It didn’t take away my belief actually that they would be baptized together, and they were. They were. It was almost, I mean, exactly like the vision was. They actually cut that part of my talk out so that he never saw it, ’cause he would watch my stuff. And so they cut it out, and he’s like, “What do you mean that there was a vision?” This is after he’s given his life to the Lord. Just the power of testimony, and then it just changes generations. ‘Cause here, both of our boys got baptized a few years ago, and Andrew got to baptize one in our pool. Things I could only dream about. I mean, do you know how honored God was that day? He gets the glory for doing all of this. Here, this is the place that I work. These are the leaders in the company because they made a decision to honor God and to love people. It changes everything. And that flourishing isn’t the absence of anything, right? It’s the presence of someone, and it’s God’s love. And I just wanna end with this scripture. John 13:34-35 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Who are the Gina Roaches and Andrew Roaches in your culture that need your love? Who on your team needs to hear your story, to have your testimony, and to feel your love, God’s love through you? ‘Cause it can change everything in an instance. So Father, we just thank you so much for who you are. God, I just thank you, um, that you allow us to work alongside you, to bring redemption and restoration to every sphere of influence that there is, Father. And so we just pray that we walk out here, out of here this week And we just step in. We just step into an elevated calling. Lord, we thank you for the invitation that you give all of us, that we are, that people are just waiting for an invitation, God. So highlight those people to us that we need to develop maybe special relationships with, Father, just like Ron was to me, God. And we thank you that it is true, healed people heal people. And so, Father, we just pray a healing, um, that comes over every single employee that’s represented here and the hearts of the people. Lord, transform our hearts. Make us to look more like you so that when people see us, they see you, Lord. And we just bless every business that’s here, and we pray that your kingdom would come into these workplaces just as it is in heaven. Amen.