Dharius Daniels - God and Entrepreneurship

What’s up, everybody? Uh, check this out. I grew up in Mississippi in church, memorizing this prayer called the Model Prayer, The Lord’s Prayer. There’s a part of this prayer that we had to say every time we recited it, and it was «Give us this day our daily bread.» As I got older, I did some reading— I think I was actually in seminary— and I was reading a book regarding something called the doctrine of vocation. I won’t get into the weeds there, but a question arose regarding the Model Prayer: How does God answer the part of the prayer where we are instructed to pray, «Give us this day our daily bread»? One theologian responded this way: He said God answers that prayer through the farmer who plants the grain. He answers that prayer through the workers who harvest it. He answers that prayer through the baker who bakes it. He answers that prayer through the stores that stock it and the people who sell it. I want you to catch this: vocation matters. God cares for His people by utilizing the instrument of entrepreneurship. I want you to think about this: We literally eat, we are literally clothed, we literally have transportation, and we literally have devices that allow us to press a button and see the face of our loved ones all across the world because someone acted entrepreneurially. So, this is why I say without hesitation, without apprehension, that entrepreneurship done rightly isn’t just a good idea; it’s a God idea. I’m going to say it again: entrepreneurship done rightly isn’t just a good idea; it’s a God idea.

Now let me unpack my understanding of entrepreneurship. There are a number of different approaches, takes, and definitions of this. Here’s mine: entrepreneurship is the utilization of your education, your experience, your insight, your expertise, and your innovation in a way that solves a problem for others and creates a stream of income for you. Got me? So, entrepreneurship is the utilization of your education, your experience, your insight, your expertise, and your innovations— the utilization of that in a way that solves a problem, which adds value to somebody else, and then creates a stream of income for you. Now, the utilization of that education, that experience, that expertise, that insight, that innovation, those ideas— the utilization of that is one skill. Knowing how to use it in a way that solves a problem for someone else is one skill, but then also having the recognition of the value that you’ve added to someone else is going to create appreciation in them, and they’re going to express that appreciation through compensation. That’s a completely different skill.

But I want you to think about this: when you really consider innovation, who is the ultimate innovator? God. When you really look at creation, look at the created order. Whoever created this place called Earth did so with humans in mind. I mean, it was built by design for humans. If there were a difference in the carbon dioxide to oxygen ratio, it would be trouble for us. And the position of the sun? It’s close enough for warmth but far enough away that we aren’t consumed. This is intelligent design. So, God’s the ultimate innovator, and through His innovation, He cares for His creation. He cares for His creation through His innovation. When you and I act entrepreneurially and engage in innovation, what are we doing? We’re also caring for creation. You are solving problems for people that they may not have had solved any other way.

See, I want you to think about it this way: the goal of entrepreneurship isn’t just purpose-driven entrepreneurship— and that’s a completely different teaching I’ll have to address— but let’s frame it that way. The goal of the purpose-driven entrepreneur isn’t simply to accumulate possessions for oneself. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it is also to express and show love for one’s neighbor. Innovation is one of the ways you love your neighbor well. When you create something that adds value to somebody’s life, or when you take something that you know, that you’ve experienced and been exposed to, and package it into a delivery system where it can get someone else a result that they couldn’t achieve by themselves— that is the work of God. God is not just at work in and through what we would call the gathered church. God is at work in and through what we would even call the scattered church, which includes businesses, bankers, doctors, accountants, and lawyers.

When you and I act entrepreneurially, we innovate, and that innovation is a way that we’re able to care for creation. Now, let me also debunk a couple of myths here. When I use the word entrepreneurship, oftentimes in different settings, people assume that I mean full-time entrepreneurship. Frankly, maybe this is another video, too, but I don’t believe most entrepreneurs should actually be full-time. Remember I said entrepreneurship is the utilization of your education, your experience, your expertise, your insight, your innovation, and your ideas. It’s the utilization of that in a way that solves a problem for someone else and then creates a stream of income for you. Now, for some, their stream is a river, but for others, their stream is just a stream, and so they’re going to experience increase.