Good News - September 2018

BUSINESS 20 SEPTEMBER 2018 Good News • South Florida Edition BM – If you go into my library, you’ll see about 400 books on leadership. However, only a few of them would be classified as “Christian” leadership books. I’ve discovered that most leadership principles are based in Jesus’ teachings. A lot of them are in on the Sermon on the Mount. You really have three types of leadership books. You have the “I’m the best, it’s all about me” leadership books. I’m not talking about those. Then you have some new age leadership books with a spiritual twist, but I’m not talking about those. The rest is a huge group of books and speakers that come out of the Jewish background, secular background, and Christian background. I believe all truth is God’s truth, by the way. That’s just a core value. If a non- Christian says a true thing, the truth is greater than the speaker of the truth. Truth is truth. So, I thought I’m going to speak truth and focus on that. When I speak the truth, do I always have to say that Solomon said it, that Paul said it, that Jesus said it? Let’s speak the truth and not be ashamed of its source. The BocaLead participants know we’re Christians and we’re lead- ing from a Christian perspective. GN – One of the businessmen of BocaLead that you interviewed said he comes to BocaLead because he hears a message about ethical behav- ior, integrity, honesty and trustworthiness. Does that grab the essence of BocaLead ? BM – Yes. Over the years the City of Boca in particular and South Florida in general have been known for unethical behavior in business. The Penny Stocks, the dot-com issues of 20 years ago, MCI, Tyco, CenTrust - we were ground zero for all of those. We’re known for unethical practices. Then you hear everybody say, “My contractor’s unethical, the guy that’s fixing my pool is unethical.” I thought, “Let’s attack it head on. Let’s not just talk around the issue. Let’s say, okay, as business people our culture is unethical. Let’s raise the bar of ethics. Let’s raise the bar of character. Let’s raise the bar of integrity”. Now, there’s a group of 450 business professionals at BocaLead, and with Laud- erdaleLead another 300 – over 700 people who are trying to work with integrity and want to incorporate a higher level of ethics in the workplace throughout South Florida. We use that as our platform to speak to business people, and it’s working. There are two other parts there. One is after they hear a talk on something that is Biblically based, although it may not have a chapter and verse from the Scripture, the Christian who is there can talk to their coworkers about it, and faith can become a part of the conversation within a business setting. It’s the idea that they can hear this concept at BocaLead one day, and all of a sudden it can move into a conversation about faith. The other is, I want the community at large and the business community in particular to know that the church can speak into their world. Often, the church is only speaking into what occurs after 6 o’clock at night till 7:00 a.m. Be a good father. Be a good mother. Be a good parent. Have a good quiet time. Give to the church. Go on Saturday and vol- unteer at the local ministry. Go to church on Sunday. We’ve skipped 7:30 in the morning until 6:00 in the evening. That’s 100,000 hours if a person works the full extent of their life, and the church is silent on that. I want to remind both the non-Christian and the Christian that the church, the Scriptures, the Bible, has something to say about 7:30 in the morning till 6:00 in the evening. And I want to help other pastors catch the vision to do that. Pastors are afraid to speak to business people. I remind them, “You’re run- ning a business. You have 20 employees, a $2 million budget, you have to hire and fire, you’ve got to make a budget. You have a board of directors called an elder or deacon board. You have customers called visitors. All the elements of the for-profit world”. Pastors have the right to talk to people in business about the integrity of business. This is the genius of BocaLead! It’s not the great speaking. It’s certainly not the lunch. It’s a $12 church lunch. We know how to do sound, video, and audio incredibly well. We know how to do the front door. We know how to do hospitality, too. At other business events, they get a good lunch for 35 bucks and they may get a good speaker, but a terrible emcee with terrible audio. Bo- caLead is now known as the highest quality monthly business event in the City of Boca Raton. There are 70 people every month that make this thing called BocaLead happen. With BocaLead , LauderdaleLead , and Mi- amiLead, we will have a thousand business people in South Florida all talking about the same thing every month. You work in Boca or Fort Lauderdale and have a client in Miami and all of a sudden you’re talking about similar crucial conversations. Each month the topic varies. We talk about toxic relationships in business and how they destroy the work environment and beyond. We talk about how to deal with your competitors in an honest and forthright way. The great thing is, now, you can be talking to one of your competitors in Miami and they heard the same talk, and business can happen and it’s happening in a Christian fashion. Pastor Bill Mitchell Photo Credit: Boca Raton Community Church Locations, Dates and Times for BocaLead, LauderdaleLead and MiamiLead While the dates sometimes fluctuate, BocaLead is typically the first Thursday of the month. The next date is September 6th at Boca Raton Community Church, 470 NW 4th Ave, Boca Raton, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 .p.m. LauderdaleLead is usually the third Thursday of the month. The next date is September 20th at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, 5555 N Federal Hwy, Fort Lauderdale MiamiLead is slated for the fourth Thursday of the month. The next date is September 27 th at Christ Journey Church, 624 Anastasia Ave, Coral Gables. For upcoming dates and to reserve your seat, visit bocalead.org , lauderdalelead.org or miamilead.org. (Continued from page 18) A Businessman and Pastor’s Perspective on Leadership