Today on the Follower of One podcast, Mike Henry sits down with Chris Champion. Chris helps companies and organizations build caring cultures and provide 'life-changing care' through our Chaplains and Care Coaches. In today’s episode, Mike and Chris talk about the creation of Telachap and LeapCare, using the internet to expand your business, the importance of security, becoming a chaplain, being called into ministry, playing in the Lord’s sandbox, and learning to recognize the kingdom opportunities around us.  Outline of the Episode 02:00 - About Corporate Chaplains of America 03:16 - Using the internet to increase your business 06:35 - Being an employer-provided service 07:45 - The importance of security 09:57 - How Chris got involved with Telachap and LeapCare 11:01 - The experience with Telachap and LeapCare 14:03 - What EAP stands for 16:10 - Becoming a Chaplain 19:43 - Being called into ministry 20:47 - Playing in the Lord’s sandbox 22:07 - Learning to recognize the kingdom opportunities around us  Being called into Ministry Being called into ministry is a powerful and life-changing experience. It is a calling to serve others, to spread the love and compassion of Christ, and to make a positive impact in the lives of those around you. Learning to recognize the kingdom opportunities around us Do you see the opportunities around you that the Lord is giving you? We can be better at seeing what the Lord has in store for us by reading our Bibles, spending intimate time in His word, and being apart of a Biblical community. The Lord will always give us opportunities, we just need to recognize them.  Follow Chris Champion TelaChap LeapCare   Connect With Follower Of One Join us over in our Online Community, get social with us; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Listen to our podcast on your way to work and subscribe using your favorite podcast app!

Do we take God's blessings for granted? I probably do! "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Romans 2:4 ESV Do I take another day for granted? I kind of assume that tomorrow is another day. When I consider that apart from God, I take on the role of his enemy. In reality, if I saw God for who he really is, I'd be scared to death. God's glory and his magnificence is disguised and cloaked in our world because if we saw him for what he really is, we would be freaked out. God is giving us the chance to turn to him. Every day is a day he has given us to choose him over any other path. He even came and died to show us the way. And he's giving us time, grace, and mercy so we can make the choice. Everything is in our favor. We just don't need to blow it! So what can we do today? Well, let's take seriously the time we have? Who might God want us to talk to today? Who can we pray for? Who can we help? Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and point you in the direction he wants you to go. Find someone to serve. Give a coffee, send a text, make a call. God has you right where you are so you can choose to follow him. Will you? Why not send someone a text today that you haven't communicated with in months. Tell them you were thinking about them and ask how they're doing? Listen and let God tell you what to do next. Appreciate them today because Jesus appreciates you and died for you. Even when we give a cup of cold water because we follow Jesus, it matters. See Matthew 10:42 Thanks for being a marketplace minister. What you do because you follow Jesus matters, forever! Don't forget it.

Do you obey the law? If not, which laws do you break? "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty." James 2:12 ESV James mentions this twice. Check out James 1:25, also. If we judge others under the law of liberty, what are we to correct? You almost need the verses before this to put it in perspective, so check out the previous 4 podcasts or so. James is making a contrast to the Law of Israel. Not just the 10 commandments, but all the rules and observances. That was the law of sin and death. Now we have a new law. The commandments all boiled off to love God and love people. (Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:25-28). James is reminding his readers that our goal is to speak and act (live) according to these principles. Today, how can we speak and act according to the law of liberty? Let's remember our 5 daily habits, 1) Pray, 2) Appreciate others 3) Know what we believe, 4) Serve others, and 5) Speak for ourselves. What can we do today? What can we say today. Remember when you're around the people you see regularly, find a way to serve them that can't be explained. Do an excellent job. Help them with their job. Get your work done early so you can help them. Go out of your way to trust Jesus by serving the people you interact with. Ask God to give you the ideas. Then consider joining a community of believers who want this to be the trademark of their life. We want our daily life to count for eternity, all seven days. Why not head over to www.followerofone.org and create a free account and join us. The more people you have around you serving others because they follow Jesus, the more likely you will be to do that too. You know it will work. Take the first step.

Does God grade us on a curve? James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. (ESV) Don't you wish we had a curve? James tells us there is no margin for error. If we keep the whole law but stumble in one thing, we're guilty of all. The bar for living our faith is very high. If we fail in one point, we failed in all. Romans 3:23 says, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." We all fall short. I think James is reminding us of this point here for a reason. We can get tempted to think we're "OK." We can get tempted to think we are better than the next person. The challenge for us today is to never give up. Remember there is always more we can do. Often, we think doing what Jesus wants us to do is work. We think if we do what Jesus wants, we can't do our job, or we can't do what we want. But what Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10) What Jesus wants us to do seems like work, but we know when we do it we find joy. Don't let your flesh talk you out of listening to Jesus. Every place we come up short is a place where we miss out. Your next dreaded situation at work could be the place where you see Jesus do a miracle. Let's remember every compromise or every transgression is a place where we fail. We can make great choices, which we'll talk about in the next episode. Let's do them one at a time. I hope these podcasts challenge you. Please let us know what you think. Send a note to podcast@followerofone.org and tell us what you'd like us to talk about. Our goal is to help you integrate your faith and work. Begin by asking Jesus and he will guide you. Remember, what you do because you follow Jesus matters. Thanks!

Could your partiality masquerade as love? James 2:8-9 "If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall lvoe your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." (ESV) What we call love actually might be partiality in disguise. To fully integrate our faith and work, we must let God test our motives for everything we do. We think if we show favor to someone, we are demonstrating love. James states very clearly that if we show partiality to someone based on how we judge them, especially regarding their wealth, we violate the law. Partiality becomes a cheap substitute for love. How can you tell? Well, do you show favoritism to people who can't pay you back? It's easy to love the good customers. What about the problem ones? We've all seen examples of people trying to look good to the people at the top of the org chart. What about people further down the org chart? Will you let God show you how to bring your faith to work? Where does he want it to show up today? Simply asking is the first step, but also listen for the answer. Then act. If you are given answers by God but you don't take action, after a while, you won't be able to hear his voice. Or he will change the message. Today, ask God to help you treat your work as ministry. Life doesn't have to be compartments. You can combine your faith and work. Practice our 5 Daily Habits, Pray, Appreciate Others, Know what you believe, Serve Others and Speak for Yourself and you will find that your faith and joy show up at work all the time! Also, remember this podcast is designed to challenge you. Take the challenge. Ask God to show you where you can improve and begin the process. Subscribe to this podcast and share it with others so you can integrate your faith and work daily!

What do you set out to do each day? James 2:5 Listen my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (ESV) God doesn't work on the same economic principles we tend to choose. We think if we had more money, things would be better. We can get very busy building wealth. We talk about it quite a bit. Most of the world seems to be chasing it. Even in the faith at work world, much conversation is about how Christians can run their businesses better. But when we use the term "better," or when we try to measure "success," what are we measuring? Do we measure money, influence, ease, our ability to do what we want? I don't think any of those measures are important to God in the least. If we create kingdom value, we're laying up treasure in heaven. What's important to God and how can we produce more of that? We have a new commandment according to Jesus, to love God and love people. Today, let's ask God to give us his values. He can show us what we should measure. He will guide us if we'll ask and wait for his answer. And we must act. If we get an answer from God, but it's not what we wanted to hear, are we willing to move? Why not join a community of people who are trying to create eternal value, treasure in heaven, rather than wealth here on earth. Join us at https://community.followerofone.org so we can all help one another remember scripture like this. Let's challenge one another to love the people around us and that will create value here on earth and in eternity, too.

How can we love someone if we judge them? James 2:3-4 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand ver there," or, "Sit down at my feet," have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (ESV) James points out that when we classify people based on their appearance or any other reason, we exercise evil motives or evil thoughts. I confess that I can struggle with this passage. But James is steadfast. What do we base our judgments on? And should we judge at all? We have to judge. But we shouldn't label. You make judgments all the time. You judge whether or not you should leave your phone on the table or your keys in the car. When we label people and group them based on judgments about their character, that's wrong. We talk about trying to help everyone move one notch closer to Jesus. That requires that I at least consider where the other person already is. But I don't want to judge with evil thoughts or, as some translations say, with evil motives. If we judge so we can label people, then we dropped the ball. Today, I should ask Jesus what I can do. The people I'm already planning to meet, how can I help them move one notch closer to Jesus? What can I do for them? I can pray for them. I can ask God how he wants me to interact with them? I can do things I know are always correct, like demonstrate love, or forgiveness. What we do because we follow Jesus matters. Today, ask God to show you if you're showing partiality to some. Ask God to show you how to integrate your faith into your work daily. Can your faith direct how you interact with others? This verse will help you examine your own motives and make sure you do your job the way God would want it done. Are these podcasts helpful to you? Why not take a minute and share this podcast on social media. Mention it to your friends from church, or introduce us to your spouse or to a new person at work. Sharing this helps more of us remember God has a job for us to do every day.

What's your most valuable possession? "For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world." 1 John 2:16 ESV Do you find that you love the stuff of the world? We're clearly challenged by many things in the Bible to use our resources to help others see Jesus. They're really not our resources anyway. Everything came from God and goes back to him. Often the stuff I want to own, enjoy or experience can be a trap. God gives it to us to use for his purposes. But when we fall in love with it, we lose out. What will you do today with the stuff you have? You have time, money, energy, experience. All of those things can be used to help others see and follow Jesus. We lose out when we hold any of it back. Let that sink in and then take action. What we do because we follow Jesus matters. Don't forget to invite someone else to listen to this podcast, either. We're listener supported and shared. You can support us by going to www.followerofone.org and clicking the Donate button on the upper right hand corner. Thanks for following Jesus in the marketplace. What we do because we follow him matters forever.

Be honest with yourself. Do you love God, or the world?   "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15 NASB   You can tell when I'm convicted. I love God. But I still spend a lot of time, money and energy chasing things in the world.   It took me several years to say I loved Jesus. I've always had trouble with authority and my dad and I had trouble. I didn't have good tools to understand what he was going through. My own perspective leads my thinking more than I know and I couldn't understand him or his perspective. He was a great man. I never realized that.   My problems with authority also spilled over into my relationship with God. For the longest time, I thought he got tired of me screwing up. But as I get older, I learn more about his perspective and my dad's, too. Recently, I've started telling Jesus I love him. And I want to love him more.   This verse doesn't give us much room. Either we love God or we love the world. I confess, I enjoy not having a lot of commitments. I enjoy being able to take it easy. I enjoy sweets. I enjoy a lot of the world. but I'm learning to actively love God more. I do that by doing what he says and reading his word, hanging out with his people, talking to him about others. I even try to be a better husband and father and friend.   Let's talk tomorrow about the things that distract us a bit. Today, just tell God you love him. Or if you have a problem with that, I fully understand. I just prayed for you. Ask God to give you more time and trust him. Let's all do what we can and not concentrate on the things we're not able to do. Take a minute and ask God to give you an idea of how you can demonstrate your love for him. Maybe you need to give something away. He'll make it clear to you.   Then head over to Follower of One online community and let us know what you did. There's a post in the community on this podcast. Comment on that post and share what you feel led to share. People in that community will pray for you and your faith will make a difference. Check it out.  

What do we need courage for? What's the point of courage?   "I have said these things to you, that in me you may peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." John 16:33 ESV   Here is another passage about taking heart. Several translations say "take heart," while others say "take courage." Others translate it "be of good cheer." We might say "be encouraged."   Jesus is headed to the cross. This is the night he is taken into custody. In hours he will hang on a cross. Judas is in the process of betraying Jesus as he speaks. Two verses before this, he challenges the eleven, "Do you now believe?" Then he reminds them again, things are about to get bad. This is all coming to an end.   Then he reminds them that he's still in charge and they can take courage. This isn't passive. They had to choose. Judas made his choice. Now every one of them will have to choose. We must choose, too. We are to choose courage, heart, or cowardice and selfishness. We choose with Jesus or without.   Will we let our circumstances cause us to focus only on ourselves? Or will we choose heart? Will we make a positive difference in the lives of others. Will we love God and love people, or will we protect ourselves. Will we ignore others and focus on our schedule, our commitments, or will we make time to appreciate, serve and value others?   We formed a community for believers who want to take courage. It's called Follower of One. It's filled with people who want to take courage and they know sometimes they take courage, and sometimes they receive it. That's what a community is. We want our faith to be the source of our energy, our strength and our actions. We help one another through interactions either in the Marketplace Mission Trips we do, or by praying for and interacting with one another. Why not check it out. Head over to https://community.followerofone.org and join us.