WEBVTT
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Who has time for fun?
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Welcome to God at Work.
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Stories of calling, courage, and conviction.
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Through real stories and meaningful conversations, we'll discover how God shows up in the boardroom, the job site, and beyond.
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Here's your hosts, Gina Ventola and Adam Kemper.
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Welcome to God at Work.
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Today we're joined by Chris Terrell.
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Chris owns Chris's garage doors in Denver and focuses on mastering his craft, doing what's right, and caring for people.
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He is dedicated to helping others move beyond passion and live with purpose through their work.
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Chris, thanks for joining us today.
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Welcome.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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It's a pleasure being here.
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Chris, I'm so glad you're here and I appreciate you coming on our podcast.
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You know our podcast is called God at Work.
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What does that phrase God at Work mean for you?
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That's a great question.
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And I don't know if this is intentional, but it does really feel like it has a double meaning because when I think of God at work, I think on the broad level, like God is just, He is at work in the world.
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I often think about how we get so focused on what's happening around us or what's happening negatively.
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Like we focus on the negative.
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And I always tell people, like, you need to, you just focus.
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God is doing amazing things around the world.
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And all you need to do is look for it because people are finding him, seeing him, coming to him, having visions of him, being healed by him.
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And he is just always faithful in his work in the world.
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But obviously, the the other side of it is I believe that God is in our work.
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If that makes sense.
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And it doesn't matter whether we're cleaning toilets or speaking in front of thousands of people.
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We can be faithful to his work through our work.
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And that I firmly believe that if you follow Jesus, you are in ministry no matter where you are in life and what you're doing.
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And so that's kind of how I view God at work, and I'm pretty sure he made that as intentional double meaning.
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Yes, yes, we did make that intentional double meaning.
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So thank you for that.
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Now you mentioned about where like you see God everywhere, we see God everywhere.
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Where is a place, nondescript place where you see God in the details?
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Can you define what you mean by nondescript place?
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It could be in nature, it could be in it doesn't have to be at church, it doesn't have to be Yeah, I mean I think you just have to look.
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I I'm a firm believer that if you're seeking God, you will find him.
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And and that's kind of like when people are getting caught up on like the details of faith.
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And I and I understand that there's there's great need for the discipline of of understanding why we believe and all that stuff, but I think that if you're a seeker, you you will find God.
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Um my favorite place in in the in is in nature.
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Like I love going on a hike and seeing like the vastness of the mountain.
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That's one of the reasons why I love living in Colorado.
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Seeing God's majesty is a great way that I connect with Him.
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But I see it in one of the cool things about being a business owner is I've had the ability to talk to people from all different contexts and to talk about my faith journey and and how God is working in my life.
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And I've had people that are self-proclaimed atheist agnostic, and they've asked me specifically to tell me, tell them about my faith.
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And that's God, that's not me working in their heart, that's God working in their heart.
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And you see that I've done ministry.
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One of my favorite overseas opportunities I've had is working with Iranian believers, and we have to meet in a different country than Iran, obviously, and work with them.
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And just hearing about how the gospel is moving in a country that is completely hostile to Christianity, it's discouraging and encouraging all the same time because they're experiencing persecution.
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Obviously, we all know what's happening in Iran right now.
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It's a lot more prevalent in the American psyche right now.
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But I've been working with them for years and and there is just a hunger and thirst for God in their lives.
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And it's cool.
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It's cool to see the gospel spread.
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And and I just think you just have to look.
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You'll find it.
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And obviously there's bad things happening in the world, but but God's goodness will always come through the darkness.
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That's a good reminder.
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I appreciate that.
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There are times I know I struggle with the darkness of the world and and seeing that.
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There's a there's a deep intentionality, I imagine, that it requires to keep that perspective in the face of kind of the onslaught of the world.
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How do you do that?
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That's a great question.
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We we live in a society that thrives on negativity.
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I think humans have always thrived on negativity in the sense of it draws our attention.
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I think there's studies that have shown that it takes like 10 positive comments to overcome one negative.
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So we we feed off of negativity in a bad way.
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We attach ourselves to it and we we listen to those voices more.
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I think one of the things that is helpful is to just kind of turn off the the noise sometimes.
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I I'm a big advocate for finding neutral media resources.
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Uh, there's actually one that I've been reading a lot called The Poor Over.
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And it's just a very simple like, here's what's going on in the world, and here's a Christian perspective.
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It's not biased towards one political platform.
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It's just trying to disseminate information and then and then give a nice little scripture and a prayer to go with it of like how can we perceive this as believers?
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I think trying to avoid the echo chamber as much as possible is going to help you clear your mind because what happens is in especially in the political world, both sides are trying to get your attention and they use negativity to get that, and they're always attacking the other side.
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And that just kind of puts your mind in like this the world's going downhill, the world's in a terrible place, the world's, you know, yada yada yada, and just intentionally trying to find more neutral voices.
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And then beyond the neutrality of it, I try to listen to well, there's I do a Lectio Divina podcast every day, and that's Lectio Divina is basically going through scripture multiple times in a meditative state to try to to draw out what God's trying to teach you in in the moment in that text.
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And that it just helps center you in and like, look, God is God will always be in control.
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No matter what you're experiencing now, God sent his son on this earth to die for you.
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And if Jesus can have joy going towards the cross, and we can have joy knowing that Jesus did that for us.
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And then finally, one of my favorite things to do is almost every day I pray.
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Well, I sing, Be Thou My Vision.
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It's one of my favorite hymns.
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And it just helps me center my thoughts on God is my vision, and I need to focus on serving Him, not focusing on myself or the accolades or the whatever in the world.
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And and so that's that's a daily prayer or song that I sing in the car on the way to whatever appointment I've got first in the day.
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So would you say that that's your way uh taking thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ?
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Yeah.
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I mean, anything you can do to medicate on the scripture and and focus on Jesus and gratitude, it it's gonna help control your mind.
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It's gonna help you, like you said, take those thoughts captive and give them to God because He's the one that has control.
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And by no means am I perfect.
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Definitely get caught in the negativity cycle and stuff like that.
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But I I don't want to make this about me, but I just have to throw myself on the uh the fire there because I I had to delete Facebook at the end of last week, and it wasn't even like sinful contact.
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I actually caught myself one evening staying up later than I needed to watching videos of Dr.
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Phil.
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I was like, what is what what am I doing?
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Where is the value in this to my spirit, my brain, anything?
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It's not terrible, but it's pointless that I'm watching it.
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And what am I feeding myself?
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I'm not racing, I'm not feeding the spirit, I'm watching Dr.
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Phil.
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Why?
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Why?
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So I had to delete it again from my phone because it's even if it's not like creating a sinful interaction, it's still taking that energy of the of the world and turning it into a place of anxiety and yeah, like just tension about all the bad things people do to each other on some level.
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Yeah, and that was that was affecting my anxiety because instead of taking that time to be at peace, I was using it to get emotionally wound up by something pointless.
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So there, I hear your intentionality in that.
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You fill those quiet spaces really well with things that aren't gonna tempt you to, and again, it's not like, oh, it's tempting me to sex or to to violence, but it's tempting me to distraction, it's tempting me to anxiety, it's tempting me to to to covet objects that I want to spend money on instead of filling those quiet spaces with God, which it sounds like you do pretty well, and I'm I I must lessons I'm learning from that.
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Well, I do it well enough sometimes.
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I start my day well, and sometimes it, you know, it gets kind of moved in.
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I think that we we often we often believe we're worse off than we really are.
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I think one of the coolest things about God, well, okay, honestly, and I and I don't I hope I'm not distracting from the conversation we're supposed to have, but one of the the most impactful things I learned through my education was that God is a God who suffers with us.
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Like the the theology of suffering is actually a really fascinating discussion.
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And the idea that God put himself through all human experiences so that he can well obviously be the perfect sacrifice for our sins and all of that stuff.
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But the experience that God has with us, because we when we think about evil and darkness and difficulty and persecution, which we are fairly insulated from in the United States, but some of our brothers and sisters in other countries are not.
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The fact is that, you know, because the the theology of suffering and and the goodness of God and the power of God and all that stuff, and and knowing that we serve in our religion, in Christianity, it's really the only text or scripture or religion that that demonstrates that God is willing to be in the muck with us, in the darkness, in the suffering, and to go to the point of even sacrificing himself for our sake.
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It's just a powerful image of this this God is walking through everything with us and in us, and that he's there to comfort us.
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He's not there to stop it per se until the end when when all things are made right, but he's walking alongside us through the darkness and he's guiding us and he's experienced it.
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And there's nothing that we can experience as humans that he hasn't gone through as a human as well.
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It's one of the biggest mysteries of our faith, but one of the biggest beauties, in my opinion, of God has been there.
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He has suffered and he is suffering with us.
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I feel like his heart is with us in every moment.
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So when we are going through those dark times of anxiety or thinking the world is is in a place of despair, God's like, Yeah, I know I'm there with you, and I'm gonna help you get through it, and I'm gonna help all of us get through it.
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And in the end, I'm gonna make everything right.
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I like that.
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Thank you for sharing that because that is an excellent point.
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I would take it a step further.
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And one thing that separates our faith from other faith is grace, is the concept of grace along with that, and that we will never be good enough.
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We will never be able to earn it.
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He graciously gives us grace, and I think that goes along with suffering that he goes through that with us.
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Yeah.
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Versus, you know, sitting up there and having kicking back, just I wonder what the what my believers are doing today.
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He is right always with us.
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He's not an observer of the human experience, he is a joins us in it.
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Exactly.
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And when someone asks me, where do I get my hope?
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I think of the two things we just discussed.
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That he is always with us and that he gives us his grace.
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Again, we can't earn it.
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You know, there are different religions, you are always wanting to achieve something or and we don't have that burden.
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That's not a burden we have to carry.
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And so we serve a mighty God.
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Amen to that.
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So, Chris, what do you like to do for fun?
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Who has time for fun?
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I uh you know, I you know, we're in a point I love I love sporting events, so going to Broncos games, Avalanche games, Nuggets games.
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I mean, we I often say I'm a very spoiled sports fan.
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Um, we live in a a city that is just rife with good sports.
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I mean, we just, you know, the in and I don't know when this is gonna be published, but we're recording this like the day or two days after the largest attended women's soccer event in American history.
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We have the Denver Broncos having the largest sellout streak in a single city.
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We've got the Nuggets and Abs who just won a national or uh title within a couple years, and it's just fun to be around it.
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I mean, we're gonna remove the Rockies from the equation.
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There's always uh you know an outlier in the equation.
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But I'm a huge sports fan, you might notice.
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You may not know this, but the largest professional lacrosse attendance in in professional lacrosse history was at mile high when they used to have the outdoor outlaws being here locally, and they're trying to get them back to a local team.
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They reconstituted a couple years ago.
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Even lacrosse, we have set the record for largest attendance.
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So this is a town that even the smaller sports.
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We love our sports here, we love them.
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As DU hockey, great tournaments there.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Um, and personally, I'm an Ohio State fan.
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Don't judge me too hard.
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I have I have had a I started following them in 2001 when I moved to Ohio as a kid, and it's been 25 years of spoiled sports fandom.
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Again, like there's obviously programs that have had more success, but every year we've got a shot, and it's just fun to be a fan right now.
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So that's just sports.
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I love hiking.
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I really enjoy smoking a cigar and and drinking a glass of scotch.
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One of the reasons why I enjoy it is um, well, one, I enjoy the taste, and two, I'm a very relationally driven person.
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And when you're smoking a cigar, you have to slow down.
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You have to sit there and be in the moment.
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And I don't smoke alone.
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I always have a friend with me.
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So it really, it's kind of like when you're sitting around a campfire, you almost always have a better conversation.
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It's a very similar experience when you're smoking a cigar.
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You're just sitting there, you're looking ahead, and you're just enjoying the aromas, the moment, the experience, and then you're having a good conversation with a buddy, and you can go, you can get pretty deep in those moments.
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So I I really enjoy that.
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And then I'm I'm also a father of an almost four-year-old right now.
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So family time in the afternoons is or in the evenings is always just a good, a good time to rough house or go do something fun or watch a movie.
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It's yeah, so there's there's a lot of good things to be done in in the world, but I'm not I'm not a super adventurous person, so I'm not always out doing stuff, but there's always something to do.
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Well, you and I have previously discussed this, so I will let the Ohio State portion slide, as most of our viewers know, I'm a huge Crimson Tide fan.
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So roll tide, so we will move on from that.
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You've been a spoiled sports fan as well.
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Absolutely.
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So with that said, Chris, what would you like our audience to know about God?
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Man.
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That's a great question.
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I I mean there's so many things.
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I think kind of what I was talking about is like if you if you were to look at all the world religions, because a lot of people like to say like all religions lead to one place, or it doesn't matter which religion you follow, as long as you're spiritual or whatever, look at look at the scriptures genuinely.
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Seek.
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I like I said, I believe if you're a true seeker, you will find Jesus.
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I don't think there's a question in my mind that if you're a true seeker, you will find Jesus.
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And I mean, because a lot of people have different presuppositions and they think they're true seekers, but they we all have presuppositions, and you'll never eliminate them.
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But if you truly want the truth, and look at the Bible from a grand context, from the fact that it's one of the only, if not the only, religious texts that actually highlights the weaknesses of its heroes.
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The fact that the man who is in direct line at the Messiah committed adultery and murder and was still forgiven and given the ability to lead the kingdom and maintain his lineage to the Messiah, the fact that one of the the founder of the monotheistic religions lied and put his wife in danger on multiple occasions and doubted God's faithfulness to provide him a child, and even slept with his maidservant to kind of bring God's promise about in his own way, and yet still becomes the father of all humanity, essentially, and the the the heir to Christianity.
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Like these things, there's so many stories, even like when people talk about how they're not worthy, it's like, yeah, no kidding, nobody's worthy.
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Look at the New Testament.
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Majority of the writings in the New Testament are written by a man who was actively murdering people who follow Jesus.
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And he was encounter he countered the Christ, forgiven, and became one of the biggest evangelists of all time and one of the most prolific authors of of what we see as our New Testament scriptures today.
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And God, there and then you think about it from the other counter-cultural perspectives, Jesus wasn't just a good teacher, and you could talk about C.S.
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Lewis's liar lunatic lord argument.
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Um, but he wasn't just a good teacher.
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The whole the Bible turns culture upside down.
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The fact that Jesus encountered a woman, a Samaritan woman at the well, he was breaking societal norms on multiple counts on that one.
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He was a Jewish man talking to a woman, not good.
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And he was a Jew talking to a Samaritan, also not good from a cultural standpoint.
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The fact that women were the first people to see the empty tomb, the first people to report the risen Messiah.
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If you are in first century Roman culture and you're trying to make a lie kind of happen, you wouldn't use women as your credible source in that time frame.
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:24.640
So, like, there's so much evidence that that what happened in scripture is is reliable.
00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:33.599
And and again, what I was saying about earlier about there is no religion that talks about the God who really walks this life with you.
00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:43.839
Because people often point to like, well, there's so much evil in the world, God can't be real, because if God is all powerful and all loving and caring, then he wouldn't allow this to happen.
00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:52.319
And I get, I get the emotion behind that because it I hate seeing evil, but the the scriptures clearly outlines why evil is here.
00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:59.200
But even if you eliminate that and you want to just go from baseline, there's evil in the world, so therefore there must not be a God.
00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:06.079
How do we know what good and evil is if it isn't for a moral authority that created everything?
00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:26.480
And the reality that evil does exist doesn't it so if we just realize that evil does exist and we don't understand where, where, how, or why, wouldn't you rather follow the God that's like, yes, I know it's there, and we're all deserving of sin and evil, but I'm here to put myself in the path of that evil.
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:30.559
I'm willing to take on all of that for your sake.
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.400
Wouldn't you rather serve that God?
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:36.720
And then the bottom line, what I really want everybody to know is God loves you.
00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:38.000
He loves you unconditionally.
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:43.759
Doesn't matter where you come from, where you are, where you're going, he will love you always.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:59.759
I think a lot of people have trouble with love uh through you know, it's it's hard when you with parents, because a lot of people have troubled relationships with parents, and I feel like parent the parental relationship is a way that a lot of people interact with God because that's kind of how God is.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:11.839
Is shown to us in the scripture, and a lot of us have had abusive parents or just unloving situations or parents that are really strict and want us to like kind of be a legalistic kid in a way.
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:22.240
And and the truth is, God loves you, He created you, He wants to be with you, and He loves you unconditionally, and just say hi and He'll um He'll rub his arms around you.
00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:25.200
There's a long answer.
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:41.279
I would just say Amen because I I loved all of that because I'm sitting here thinking, yeah, I mean you can make a further argument as far as Abraham, who you mentioned, that technically Yes, he lied.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:47.279
We know he lied about Sarah, but he also didn't at the same time.
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:48.799
He just didn't tell the whole truth.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:23:01.440
And so the question is, you could spend hours and days breaking that down because yes, when they said is this your wife, he said, No, that's a lie.
00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:09.200
But then he said, This is my sister, which is not a lie because they were half siblings.
00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:14.000
And so it's interesting the people you chose.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:19.200
I mean, the apostle Paul, you know, it always brings up questions to me.
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:27.839
Why didn't because but Paul was such a learned man, but that's not what God appealed to when he approached him.
00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:34.720
Well, when you talk about evil, it's that's such an understandable struggle in the heart.
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:44.799
And I always find myself going back to the Last Supper, Simon Luke 22, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:48.480
Like that's that's the battle that goes on on earth.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:52.720
There's the attempt to do that by the spiritual forces.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:09.279
So um, you know, if you are already chosen by God to be lifted up, it makes that battle a little easier because you look around you and you go, well, well, of course, this is the fallen world that says that.
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:12.480
The next thing is the risen world, and we'll get there.
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:15.359
Right?
00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:16.640
Patience.
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.400
Soon in the biblical sense.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:21.680
Yes.
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:27.680
Between now and never again.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:28.480
Right?
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:29.200
Yeah.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:35.759
Chris, what would you like our audience to know about your business?
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:54.079
You know, if you want to know the basic level, we do garage doors, anything from routine maintenance to full replacements, but I've never never really cared much about the work we do as opposed to like what we're accomplishing, if that makes sense.
00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.759
We've been a very community-driven company from the beginning.
00:24:58.079 --> 00:25:03.359
We dedicate 3% of our top line revenue, regardless of profitability, to local nonprofits.
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:04.960
And that can that can look different ways.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:08.160
We do volunteering events as a team.
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We do donations, strict donations, we do partnerships with charities, either sponsorships or um helping throw fundraising parties and stuff like that.
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:24.480
I'm I'm actively involved in a few charities as a board member, and I serve as an elder at my church.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:29.680
So just actively involved, and our company vision is to make Colorado a better place to live.
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:43.039
So we do that just through all these initiatives and trying to create a good company culture, taking care of our guys and and and keeping ethics, biblical ethics at at the forefront of our decision making.
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:49.279
And one of the one of the phrases that I really like, there's a there's a local nonprofit called the Denver Institute for Faith and Work.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:54.880
I think they do some really good stuff, framing work and ministry uh in in in pair.
00:25:55.039 --> 00:26:02.000
One of the things that they've focused a lot on in my interactions is is how do you create redemptive business practices?
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:08.240
So they they have it in, they have they've kind of listed in three phases of there's bad business, right?
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:10.880
People that are unethical, and then there's ethical business.
00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:21.920
But if you take it a step further to redemptive business, then it it's more about how do we build society in a redemptive way as opposed to just making the business successful in an ethical way.
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:25.039
It's a different framework in how you how do you approach it.
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:33.519
I'm trying to process how to make that more my company's values of how do we build business redemptive to the society we're in.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:36.559
So I guess that's how you'd how you'd frame it.
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:47.440
And also just knowing that, again, what we mentioned earlier, your purpose is not what you do for work or or how you it's more, there's a there's a deeper calling in your life and you can live it out no matter what context.
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:51.279
Thank you, Chris.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:52.559
I think that's amazing.
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And I appreciate you sharing that.
00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:59.519
As we close out, would you close us out in prayer?
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:01.839
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:09.359
Dear Lord, we just thank you for just the opportunity to have a conversation freely with and about you.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:16.240
We know that there are a lot of people across the world that are not freely invited to talk about you and their faith.
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:20.240
And we just pray for our brothers and sisters in that are being persecuted.
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We lift them up.
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We pray that you give them strength.
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:32.079
And we pray that we would use the platforms that we've been given, the freedom we've been given to to just be bright beacons of light for your kingdom.
00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:41.359
And that people, when they see us, they will see your love and goodness, and they will be drawn to you through our lives, through our work, through our ministry.
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:43.680
We thank you for this opportunity.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:45.359
We um pray this in your name.
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:46.160
Amen.
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:53.839
This is God at Work, reminding you to lead with faith, serve with purpose, and live out your calling.
00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:58.880
Until we meet again, keep walking boldly in your faith at work and beyond.
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:03.440
And remember, your business is your ministry.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.120
Who has time for fun?
00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:06.480
Welcome to God at Work.
00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:09.519
Stories of calling, courage, and conviction.
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Through real stories and meaningful conversations, we'll discover how God shows up in the boardroom, the job site, and beyond.
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Here's your hosts, Gina Ventola and Adam Kemper.
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Welcome to God at Work.
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Today we're joined by Chris Terrell.
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Chris owns Chris's garage doors in Denver and focuses on mastering his craft, doing what's right, and caring for people.
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He is dedicated to helping others move beyond passion and live with purpose through their work.
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Chris, thanks for joining us today.
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Welcome.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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It's a pleasure being here.
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Chris, I'm so glad you're here and I appreciate you coming on our podcast.
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You know our podcast is called God at Work.
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What does that phrase God at Work mean for you?
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That's a great question.
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And I don't know if this is intentional, but it does really feel like it has a double meaning because when I think of God at work, I think on the broad level, like God is just, He is at work in the world.
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I often think about how we get so focused on what's happening around us or what's happening negatively.
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Like we focus on the negative.
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And I always tell people, like, you need to, you just focus.
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God is doing amazing things around the world.
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And all you need to do is look for it because people are finding him, seeing him, coming to him, having visions of him, being healed by him.
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And he is just always faithful in his work in the world.
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But obviously, the the other side of it is I believe that God is in our work.
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If that makes sense.
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And it doesn't matter whether we're cleaning toilets or speaking in front of thousands of people.
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We can be faithful to his work through our work.
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And that I firmly believe that if you follow Jesus, you are in ministry no matter where you are in life and what you're doing.
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And so that's kind of how I view God at work, and I'm pretty sure he made that as intentional double meaning.
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Yes, yes, we did make that intentional double meaning.
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So thank you for that.
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Now you mentioned about where like you see God everywhere, we see God everywhere.
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Where is a place, nondescript place where you see God in the details?
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Can you define what you mean by nondescript place?
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It could be in nature, it could be in it doesn't have to be at church, it doesn't have to be Yeah, I mean I think you just have to look.
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I I'm a firm believer that if you're seeking God, you will find him.
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And and that's kind of like when people are getting caught up on like the details of faith.
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And I and I understand that there's there's great need for the discipline of of understanding why we believe and all that stuff, but I think that if you're a seeker, you you will find God.
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Um my favorite place in in the in is in nature.
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Like I love going on a hike and seeing like the vastness of the mountain.
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That's one of the reasons why I love living in Colorado.
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Seeing God's majesty is a great way that I connect with Him.
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But I see it in one of the cool things about being a business owner is I've had the ability to talk to people from all different contexts and to talk about my faith journey and and how God is working in my life.
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And I've had people that are self-proclaimed atheist agnostic, and they've asked me specifically to tell me, tell them about my faith.
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And that's God, that's not me working in their heart, that's God working in their heart.
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And you see that I've done ministry.
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One of my favorite overseas opportunities I've had is working with Iranian believers, and we have to meet in a different country than Iran, obviously, and work with them.
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And just hearing about how the gospel is moving in a country that is completely hostile to Christianity, it's discouraging and encouraging all the same time because they're experiencing persecution.
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Obviously, we all know what's happening in Iran right now.
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It's a lot more prevalent in the American psyche right now.
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But I've been working with them for years and and there is just a hunger and thirst for God in their lives.
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And it's cool.
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It's cool to see the gospel spread.
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And and I just think you just have to look.
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You'll find it.
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And obviously there's bad things happening in the world, but but God's goodness will always come through the darkness.
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That's a good reminder.
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I appreciate that.
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There are times I know I struggle with the darkness of the world and and seeing that.
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There's a there's a deep intentionality, I imagine, that it requires to keep that perspective in the face of kind of the onslaught of the world.
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How do you do that?
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That's a great question.
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We we live in a society that thrives on negativity.
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I think humans have always thrived on negativity in the sense of it draws our attention.
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I think there's studies that have shown that it takes like 10 positive comments to overcome one negative.
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So we we feed off of negativity in a bad way.
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We attach ourselves to it and we we listen to those voices more.
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I think one of the things that is helpful is to just kind of turn off the the noise sometimes.
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I I'm a big advocate for finding neutral media resources.
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Uh, there's actually one that I've been reading a lot called The Poor Over.
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And it's just a very simple like, here's what's going on in the world, and here's a Christian perspective.
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It's not biased towards one political platform.
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It's just trying to disseminate information and then and then give a nice little scripture and a prayer to go with it of like how can we perceive this as believers?
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I think trying to avoid the echo chamber as much as possible is going to help you clear your mind because what happens is in especially in the political world, both sides are trying to get your attention and they use negativity to get that, and they're always attacking the other side.
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And that just kind of puts your mind in like this the world's going downhill, the world's in a terrible place, the world's, you know, yada yada yada, and just intentionally trying to find more neutral voices.
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And then beyond the neutrality of it, I try to listen to well, there's I do a Lectio Divina podcast every day, and that's Lectio Divina is basically going through scripture multiple times in a meditative state to try to to draw out what God's trying to teach you in in the moment in that text.
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And that it just helps center you in and like, look, God is God will always be in control.
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No matter what you're experiencing now, God sent his son on this earth to die for you.
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And if Jesus can have joy going towards the cross, and we can have joy knowing that Jesus did that for us.
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And then finally, one of my favorite things to do is almost every day I pray.
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Well, I sing, Be Thou My Vision.
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It's one of my favorite hymns.
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And it just helps me center my thoughts on God is my vision, and I need to focus on serving Him, not focusing on myself or the accolades or the whatever in the world.
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And and so that's that's a daily prayer or song that I sing in the car on the way to whatever appointment I've got first in the day.
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So would you say that that's your way uh taking thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ?
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Yeah.
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I mean, anything you can do to medicate on the scripture and and focus on Jesus and gratitude, it it's gonna help control your mind.
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It's gonna help you, like you said, take those thoughts captive and give them to God because He's the one that has control.
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And by no means am I perfect.
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Definitely get caught in the negativity cycle and stuff like that.
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But I I don't want to make this about me, but I just have to throw myself on the uh the fire there because I I had to delete Facebook at the end of last week, and it wasn't even like sinful contact.
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I actually caught myself one evening staying up later than I needed to watching videos of Dr.
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Phil.
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I was like, what is what what am I doing?
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Where is the value in this to my spirit, my brain, anything?
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It's not terrible, but it's pointless that I'm watching it.
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And what am I feeding myself?
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I'm not racing, I'm not feeding the spirit, I'm watching Dr.
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Phil.
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Why?
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Why?
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So I had to delete it again from my phone because it's even if it's not like creating a sinful interaction, it's still taking that energy of the of the world and turning it into a place of anxiety and yeah, like just tension about all the bad things people do to each other on some level.
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Yeah, and that was that was affecting my anxiety because instead of taking that time to be at peace, I was using it to get emotionally wound up by something pointless.
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So there, I hear your intentionality in that.
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You fill those quiet spaces really well with things that aren't gonna tempt you to, and again, it's not like, oh, it's tempting me to sex or to to violence, but it's tempting me to distraction, it's tempting me to anxiety, it's tempting me to to to covet objects that I want to spend money on instead of filling those quiet spaces with God, which it sounds like you do pretty well, and I'm I I must lessons I'm learning from that.
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Well, I do it well enough sometimes.
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I start my day well, and sometimes it, you know, it gets kind of moved in.
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I think that we we often we often believe we're worse off than we really are.
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I think one of the coolest things about God, well, okay, honestly, and I and I don't I hope I'm not distracting from the conversation we're supposed to have, but one of the the most impactful things I learned through my education was that God is a God who suffers with us.
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Like the the theology of suffering is actually a really fascinating discussion.
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And the idea that God put himself through all human experiences so that he can well obviously be the perfect sacrifice for our sins and all of that stuff.
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But the experience that God has with us, because we when we think about evil and darkness and difficulty and persecution, which we are fairly insulated from in the United States, but some of our brothers and sisters in other countries are not.
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The fact is that, you know, because the the theology of suffering and and the goodness of God and the power of God and all that stuff, and and knowing that we serve in our religion, in Christianity, it's really the only text or scripture or religion that that demonstrates that God is willing to be in the muck with us, in the darkness, in the suffering, and to go to the point of even sacrificing himself for our sake.
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It's just a powerful image of this this God is walking through everything with us and in us, and that he's there to comfort us.
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He's not there to stop it per se until the end when when all things are made right, but he's walking alongside us through the darkness and he's guiding us and he's experienced it.
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And there's nothing that we can experience as humans that he hasn't gone through as a human as well.
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It's one of the biggest mysteries of our faith, but one of the biggest beauties, in my opinion, of God has been there.
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He has suffered and he is suffering with us.
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I feel like his heart is with us in every moment.
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So when we are going through those dark times of anxiety or thinking the world is is in a place of despair, God's like, Yeah, I know I'm there with you, and I'm gonna help you get through it, and I'm gonna help all of us get through it.
00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:24.000
And in the end, I'm gonna make everything right.
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I like that.
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Thank you for sharing that because that is an excellent point.
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I would take it a step further.
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And one thing that separates our faith from other faith is grace, is the concept of grace along with that, and that we will never be good enough.
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We will never be able to earn it.
00:12:49.519 --> 00:13:00.559
He graciously gives us grace, and I think that goes along with suffering that he goes through that with us.
00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:01.679
Yeah.
00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:09.039
Versus, you know, sitting up there and having kicking back, just I wonder what the what my believers are doing today.
00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:12.480
He is right always with us.
00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:17.759
He's not an observer of the human experience, he is a joins us in it.
00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:20.799
Exactly.
00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:26.480
And when someone asks me, where do I get my hope?
00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:29.679
I think of the two things we just discussed.
00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:34.480
That he is always with us and that he gives us his grace.
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.120
Again, we can't earn it.
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:45.279
You know, there are different religions, you are always wanting to achieve something or and we don't have that burden.
00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:47.519
That's not a burden we have to carry.
00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:49.519
And so we serve a mighty God.
00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:50.799
Amen to that.
00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:53.679
So, Chris, what do you like to do for fun?
00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:56.320
Who has time for fun?
00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:06.879
I uh you know, I you know, we're in a point I love I love sporting events, so going to Broncos games, Avalanche games, Nuggets games.
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:10.399
I mean, we I often say I'm a very spoiled sports fan.
00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:15.279
Um, we live in a a city that is just rife with good sports.
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:26.799
I mean, we just, you know, the in and I don't know when this is gonna be published, but we're recording this like the day or two days after the largest attended women's soccer event in American history.
00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:31.120
We have the Denver Broncos having the largest sellout streak in a single city.
00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:38.320
We've got the Nuggets and Abs who just won a national or uh title within a couple years, and it's just fun to be around it.
00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:41.120
I mean, we're gonna remove the Rockies from the equation.
00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:44.799
There's always uh you know an outlier in the equation.
00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:48.000
But I'm a huge sports fan, you might notice.
00:14:48.240 --> 00:15:03.039
You may not know this, but the largest professional lacrosse attendance in in professional lacrosse history was at mile high when they used to have the outdoor outlaws being here locally, and they're trying to get them back to a local team.
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:05.360
They reconstituted a couple years ago.
00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:09.759
Even lacrosse, we have set the record for largest attendance.
00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:13.279
So this is a town that even the smaller sports.
00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:16.000
We love our sports here, we love them.
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:18.960
As DU hockey, great tournaments there.
00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:19.759
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:22.960
Um, and personally, I'm an Ohio State fan.
00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.240
Don't judge me too hard.
00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:32.960
I have I have had a I started following them in 2001 when I moved to Ohio as a kid, and it's been 25 years of spoiled sports fandom.
00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:40.799
Again, like there's obviously programs that have had more success, but every year we've got a shot, and it's just fun to be a fan right now.
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:42.639
So that's just sports.
00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:43.919
I love hiking.
00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:48.720
I really enjoy smoking a cigar and and drinking a glass of scotch.
00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:56.559
One of the reasons why I enjoy it is um, well, one, I enjoy the taste, and two, I'm a very relationally driven person.
00:15:56.720 --> 00:15:59.840
And when you're smoking a cigar, you have to slow down.
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.960
You have to sit there and be in the moment.
00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:04.320
And I don't smoke alone.
00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:05.519
I always have a friend with me.
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:11.840
So it really, it's kind of like when you're sitting around a campfire, you almost always have a better conversation.
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:14.480
It's a very similar experience when you're smoking a cigar.
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:25.600
You're just sitting there, you're looking ahead, and you're just enjoying the aromas, the moment, the experience, and then you're having a good conversation with a buddy, and you can go, you can get pretty deep in those moments.
00:16:25.759 --> 00:16:26.960
So I I really enjoy that.
00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:31.360
And then I'm I'm also a father of an almost four-year-old right now.
00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:40.240
So family time in the afternoons is or in the evenings is always just a good, a good time to rough house or go do something fun or watch a movie.
00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:52.159
It's yeah, so there's there's a lot of good things to be done in in the world, but I'm not I'm not a super adventurous person, so I'm not always out doing stuff, but there's always something to do.
00:16:53.840 --> 00:17:04.240
Well, you and I have previously discussed this, so I will let the Ohio State portion slide, as most of our viewers know, I'm a huge Crimson Tide fan.
00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:07.279
So roll tide, so we will move on from that.
00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:09.839
You've been a spoiled sports fan as well.
00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:11.920
Absolutely.
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:17.680
So with that said, Chris, what would you like our audience to know about God?
00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:21.839
Man.
00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:24.079
That's a great question.
00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:25.599
I I mean there's so many things.
00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:42.640
I think kind of what I was talking about is like if you if you were to look at all the world religions, because a lot of people like to say like all religions lead to one place, or it doesn't matter which religion you follow, as long as you're spiritual or whatever, look at look at the scriptures genuinely.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:43.279
Seek.
00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:46.480
I like I said, I believe if you're a true seeker, you will find Jesus.
00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:51.200
I don't think there's a question in my mind that if you're a true seeker, you will find Jesus.
00:17:51.359 --> 00:18:00.400
And I mean, because a lot of people have different presuppositions and they think they're true seekers, but they we all have presuppositions, and you'll never eliminate them.
00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:13.440
But if you truly want the truth, and look at the Bible from a grand context, from the fact that it's one of the only, if not the only, religious texts that actually highlights the weaknesses of its heroes.
00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:55.599
The fact that the man who is in direct line at the Messiah committed adultery and murder and was still forgiven and given the ability to lead the kingdom and maintain his lineage to the Messiah, the fact that one of the the founder of the monotheistic religions lied and put his wife in danger on multiple occasions and doubted God's faithfulness to provide him a child, and even slept with his maidservant to kind of bring God's promise about in his own way, and yet still becomes the father of all humanity, essentially, and the the the heir to Christianity.
00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:05.519
Like these things, there's so many stories, even like when people talk about how they're not worthy, it's like, yeah, no kidding, nobody's worthy.
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:07.519
Look at the New Testament.
00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:13.759
Majority of the writings in the New Testament are written by a man who was actively murdering people who follow Jesus.
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:27.200
And he was encounter he countered the Christ, forgiven, and became one of the biggest evangelists of all time and one of the most prolific authors of of what we see as our New Testament scriptures today.
00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:36.480
And God, there and then you think about it from the other counter-cultural perspectives, Jesus wasn't just a good teacher, and you could talk about C.S.
00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:39.359
Lewis's liar lunatic lord argument.
00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:41.839
Um, but he wasn't just a good teacher.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:44.880
The whole the Bible turns culture upside down.
00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:52.720
The fact that Jesus encountered a woman, a Samaritan woman at the well, he was breaking societal norms on multiple counts on that one.
00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:56.480
He was a Jewish man talking to a woman, not good.
00:19:56.720 --> 00:20:01.359
And he was a Jew talking to a Samaritan, also not good from a cultural standpoint.
00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:08.319
The fact that women were the first people to see the empty tomb, the first people to report the risen Messiah.
00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:19.279
If you are in first century Roman culture and you're trying to make a lie kind of happen, you wouldn't use women as your credible source in that time frame.
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:24.640
So, like, there's so much evidence that that what happened in scripture is is reliable.
00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:33.599
And and again, what I was saying about earlier about there is no religion that talks about the God who really walks this life with you.
00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:43.839
Because people often point to like, well, there's so much evil in the world, God can't be real, because if God is all powerful and all loving and caring, then he wouldn't allow this to happen.
00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:52.319
And I get, I get the emotion behind that because it I hate seeing evil, but the the scriptures clearly outlines why evil is here.
00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:59.200
But even if you eliminate that and you want to just go from baseline, there's evil in the world, so therefore there must not be a God.
00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:06.079
How do we know what good and evil is if it isn't for a moral authority that created everything?
00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:26.480
And the reality that evil does exist doesn't it so if we just realize that evil does exist and we don't understand where, where, how, or why, wouldn't you rather follow the God that's like, yes, I know it's there, and we're all deserving of sin and evil, but I'm here to put myself in the path of that evil.
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:30.559
I'm willing to take on all of that for your sake.
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.400
Wouldn't you rather serve that God?
00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:36.720
And then the bottom line, what I really want everybody to know is God loves you.
00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:38.000
He loves you unconditionally.
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:43.759
Doesn't matter where you come from, where you are, where you're going, he will love you always.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:59.759
I think a lot of people have trouble with love uh through you know, it's it's hard when you with parents, because a lot of people have troubled relationships with parents, and I feel like parent the parental relationship is a way that a lot of people interact with God because that's kind of how God is.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:11.839
Is shown to us in the scripture, and a lot of us have had abusive parents or just unloving situations or parents that are really strict and want us to like kind of be a legalistic kid in a way.
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:22.240
And and the truth is, God loves you, He created you, He wants to be with you, and He loves you unconditionally, and just say hi and He'll um He'll rub his arms around you.
00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:25.200
There's a long answer.
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:41.279
I would just say Amen because I I loved all of that because I'm sitting here thinking, yeah, I mean you can make a further argument as far as Abraham, who you mentioned, that technically Yes, he lied.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:47.279
We know he lied about Sarah, but he also didn't at the same time.
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:48.799
He just didn't tell the whole truth.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:23:01.440
And so the question is, you could spend hours and days breaking that down because yes, when they said is this your wife, he said, No, that's a lie.
00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:09.200
But then he said, This is my sister, which is not a lie because they were half siblings.
00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:14.000
And so it's interesting the people you chose.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:19.200
I mean, the apostle Paul, you know, it always brings up questions to me.
00:23:19.359 --> 00:23:27.839
Why didn't because but Paul was such a learned man, but that's not what God appealed to when he approached him.
00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:34.720
Well, when you talk about evil, it's that's such an understandable struggle in the heart.
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:44.799
And I always find myself going back to the Last Supper, Simon Luke 22, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:48.480
Like that's that's the battle that goes on on earth.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:52.720
There's the attempt to do that by the spiritual forces.
00:23:52.960 --> 00:24:09.279
So um, you know, if you are already chosen by God to be lifted up, it makes that battle a little easier because you look around you and you go, well, well, of course, this is the fallen world that says that.
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:12.480
The next thing is the risen world, and we'll get there.
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:15.359
Right?
00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:16.640
Patience.
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.400
Soon in the biblical sense.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:21.680
Yes.
00:24:25.759 --> 00:24:27.680
Between now and never again.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:28.480
Right?
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:29.200
Yeah.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:35.759
Chris, what would you like our audience to know about your business?
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:54.079
You know, if you want to know the basic level, we do garage doors, anything from routine maintenance to full replacements, but I've never never really cared much about the work we do as opposed to like what we're accomplishing, if that makes sense.
00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.759
We've been a very community-driven company from the beginning.
00:24:58.079 --> 00:25:03.359
We dedicate 3% of our top line revenue, regardless of profitability, to local nonprofits.
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:04.960
And that can that can look different ways.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:08.160
We do volunteering events as a team.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:18.000
We do donations, strict donations, we do partnerships with charities, either sponsorships or um helping throw fundraising parties and stuff like that.
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:24.480
I'm I'm actively involved in a few charities as a board member, and I serve as an elder at my church.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:29.680
So just actively involved, and our company vision is to make Colorado a better place to live.
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:43.039
So we do that just through all these initiatives and trying to create a good company culture, taking care of our guys and and and keeping ethics, biblical ethics at at the forefront of our decision making.
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:49.279
And one of the one of the phrases that I really like, there's a there's a local nonprofit called the Denver Institute for Faith and Work.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:54.880
I think they do some really good stuff, framing work and ministry uh in in in pair.
00:25:55.039 --> 00:26:02.000
One of the things that they've focused a lot on in my interactions is is how do you create redemptive business practices?
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:08.240
So they they have it in, they have they've kind of listed in three phases of there's bad business, right?
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:10.880
People that are unethical, and then there's ethical business.
00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:21.920
But if you take it a step further to redemptive business, then it it's more about how do we build society in a redemptive way as opposed to just making the business successful in an ethical way.
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:25.039
It's a different framework in how you how do you approach it.
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:33.519
I'm trying to process how to make that more my company's values of how do we build business redemptive to the society we're in.
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:36.559
So I guess that's how you'd how you'd frame it.
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:47.440
And also just knowing that, again, what we mentioned earlier, your purpose is not what you do for work or or how you it's more, there's a there's a deeper calling in your life and you can live it out no matter what context.
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:51.279
Thank you, Chris.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:52.559
I think that's amazing.
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:55.359
And I appreciate you sharing that.
00:26:55.759 --> 00:26:59.519
As we close out, would you close us out in prayer?
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:01.839
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:09.359
Dear Lord, we just thank you for just the opportunity to have a conversation freely with and about you.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:16.240
We know that there are a lot of people across the world that are not freely invited to talk about you and their faith.
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:20.240
And we just pray for our brothers and sisters in that are being persecuted.
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:21.440
We lift them up.
00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:23.359
We pray that you give them strength.
00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:32.079
And we pray that we would use the platforms that we've been given, the freedom we've been given to to just be bright beacons of light for your kingdom.
00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:41.359
And that people, when they see us, they will see your love and goodness, and they will be drawn to you through our lives, through our work, through our ministry.
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:43.680
We thank you for this opportunity.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:45.359
We um pray this in your name.
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:46.160
Amen.
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:53.839
This is God at Work, reminding you to lead with faith, serve with purpose, and live out your calling.
00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:58.880
Until we meet again, keep walking boldly in your faith at work and beyond.
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:03.440
And remember, your business is your ministry.
