We all want meaningful work. Studies have shown meaningfulness to be a critical aspect of work performance, commitment, and satisfaction for employees beyond paycheck and rewards, opportunities for promotion, or working conditions. But, where and how do people find meaning in their work?
Our guest, Case Thorp of The Collaborative, shares his knowledge and expertise today to give us guidance on why and how we should pursue meaning in our work and in our life. He presents several ways The Collaborative helps employees and professionals to merge work, business, and faith in order to find deeper life meaning. He says if we want cultural and social renewal, then, we should become agents of change through conversations in the workplace, across industries, and institutions.
Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:
“It's through the well-formed integration of our faith and work that leaders shape institutions best.”
“We, as the church, are missing a good bit of our call if we're not taking those top-level C-suite kinds of folks and discipling them deeply and well.”
“Sometimes you have to convince somebody they're sinful before they can understand the gospel”
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
The Collaborative on Instagram
The Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Click to Find out more about our upcoming event: "Crafting Your Kingdom Investing Thesis"
About Case Thorp
Case is the Senior Associate Pastor for Evangelism at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando and leads The Collaborative team. Originally from Atlanta, Case has served as a pastor in New Jersey, Texas, California, and Louisiana. He writes, blogs, and presents for the growing faith and work movement while serving as the Made to Flourish Network co-director for Orlando. Case attended Oxford College (AA), Emory University (BA), Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Fuller Theological Seminary (DMin in Missional Ecclesiology).
Case is married to Jodi, and blessed with three children, Alexandra, Charles, and Brooks. They have enjoyed downtown Orlando as their home since 2005. He enjoys the arts, urban design, politics, cycling, and swimming.
We all want meaningful work. Studies have shown meaningfulness to be a critical aspect of work performance, commitment, and satisfaction for employees beyond paycheck and rewards, opportunities for promotion, or working conditions. But, where and how do people find meaning in their work?
Our guest, Case Thorp of The Collaborative, shares his knowledge and expertise today to give us guidance on why and how we should pursue meaning in our work and in our life. He presents several ways The Collaborative helps employees and professionals to merge work, business, and faith in order to find deeper life meaning. He says if we want cultural and social renewal, then, we should become agents of change through conversations in the workplace, across industries, and institutions.
Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:
“It's through the well-formed integration of our faith and work that leaders shape institutions best.”
“We, as the church, are missing a good bit of our call if we're not taking those top-level C-suite kinds of folks and discipling them deeply and well.”
“Sometimes you have to convince somebody they're sinful before they can understand the gospel”
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
The Collaborative on Instagram
The Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Click to Find out more about our upcoming event: "Crafting Your Kingdom Investing Thesis"
About Case Thorp
Case is the Senior Associate Pastor for Evangelism at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando and leads The Collaborative team. Originally from Atlanta, Case has served as a pastor in New Jersey, Texas, California, and Louisiana. He writes, blogs, and presents for the growing faith and work movement while serving as the Made to Flourish Network co-director for Orlando. Case attended Oxford College (AA), Emory University (BA), Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Fuller Theological Seminary (DMin in Missional Ecclesiology).
Case is married to Jodi, and blessed with three children, Alexandra, Charles, and Brooks. They have enjoyed downtown Orlando as their home since 2005. He enjoys the arts, urban design, politics, cycling, and swimming.
EPISODE 28
[INTRODUCTION]
ANNOUNCER: Imagine taking your generosity to the next level, impacting more lives, and leaving a godly legacy for generations to come. Get ideas and strategies to do just that when you listen to these personal stories from high-level Kingdom champions.
The Kingdom Investor Podcast showcases business leaders who have moved from success to significance, sharing how they use worldly wealth for Kingdom impact. Discover how they grew in generosity, impacted more lives, and built godly legacies. You'll find motivation, inspiration, and practical steps to grow as a Kingdom Investor.
Daniel White (DW): Welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast. This is your host Daniel White. Today we interview Case Thorpe. Case is a senior associate pastor and leads The Collaborative. The Collaborative has been strategically developed to help people connect the dots between faith and work and find deeper meaning in the place they spend most of their waking hours in.
If you have enjoyed The Kingdom Investor Podcast, please give us a review. Connect with us on social media. And be sure to share with your friends. Without further ado, let's get right into the show.
[INTERVIEW]
DW: Welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast. This is your host Daniel White. And I have David Clinton, my co-host, here with me.
David Clinton (DC): Hello, everybody.
DW: And we are interviewing Case Thorp. Case, do you want to say hello and tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?
Case Thorp (CT): Hello, everybody. Guys, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. So, I am an associate pastor for evangelism at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. Wonderful wife, Jodi. We did 20-year celebration this year, three children 18, 16, 11. And I'm from the south, and love living in Florida. I lead The Collaborative which is a large part of what we're going to talk about which is the faith and work ministry here in our church. And it's a lot of fun.
DW: Awesome, Case. David, how are you doing today?
DC: Doing well, it's a beautiful day here in the fall, North Idaho. Loving it, seems like summer’s lasting a little bit longer than we expected because it took a little longer to get here, at least in our part of the country. I'm really excited to hear about this faith and work ministry you've got going on. Case, would you mind praying for our listeners and open us up today?
CT: Sure thing. Thank you. Thank you for technology and the way it helps your people find one another and sharpen one another and expand your kingdom. Thank you for the conviction in our hearts about our resources and our talents and how you call us to direct them towards you and your mission of redemption and restoration in this world. So guide our conversation. And may it bless our listeners, in Christ's name. Amen.
DC: So, Case, I'd love to dive right in. Tell us about The Collaborative, how it came to be and what does it do.
CT: Sure. So, oh, my goodness, probably eight or so years ago, I went to Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, home of Tim Keller. I imagine many of your listeners are familiar with. And I was attending a course through Fuller Theological Seminary where I got my doctorate. And in this course of the morning was led by Professor, actually the president of Fuller at the time, Richard Mal, great, great guy, great writer. And then the afternoons were led by the director of the Center for Faith and Work. And in the morning, we get the theory, in the afternoon, we get the practice. And he would bring in laypeople to interview and demonstrate and show what they were doing. Well, fellas, it blew me away. And I came home and said to our senior pastor, we've got to figure out what's going on and do it ourselves. Now, this also came towards the tail end of my time of service here at this church as the mission pastor. I added the evangelism department too at one point and now I'm just on the evangelism side. But it was through twelve years of leading in local and global mission, I just saw the genius behind BAM, B-A-M, known as Business As Mission, and the way in which just giving folks money isn't the best model. And so, in our mission program, we double down on a particular program called Biblical Entrepreneurship. It's a curriculum. Are you all familiar with that?
DC: No, actually. Tell us more.
CT: Yeah, it's out of Portland, Oregon and ministry called Nehemiah Project. And Patrice Tsague is the leader of that and wrote this curriculum and he'll be a fantastic guest for you, I'm telling you. He's a good friend and a very inspirational man. Well, we found two things. When we taught biblical entrepreneurship to our congregation, most of whom are professionals. It just lit them on fire for a recommitment to their own work. But also it helped a lot of folks building businesses think through the theology of money. But then there's a level two and level three, where they could really get into forming a business plan and getting experienced leaders to take it apart and help them put it back together.
But then, on the global side, we had a very unique and beautiful partnership in Madagascar. And the longer story of a coup and a denominational president and sanctuary and all this, he said, we need jobs. So when he returned to the country, he pushed down biblical entrepreneurship to the largest denomination, Protestant denomination in Madagascar. So, I saw, we put a thousand people through this curriculum. There was a credit union that came out of it was created by the graduates of this program for the graduates of this program. You can account for about 450 jobs. So it just made sense. It made sense. So then the New York experience, like okay, we need to amplify this. So we developed what is called The Collaborative and our vision is for cultural renewal and our conviction is it's through the well-formed integration of our faith and work that leaders shape institutions best. And those institutions actually shape culture.
I think about the fact that right now I can, I'm sitting in downtown Orlando, our church is a 3500-member church on a full city block, and over there is the county administration building, the county mayor. Over there is city hall. Over there's Dr. Phillips, the big performing arts center. All over there are the banks and the business community. And I can point to different people I know in different seats who are Christ's followers. But I don't know if we're going to be able to do that so easily in 20 years, 40 years. I know that in the 80s and 90s, nobody was sitting around thinking, we need to get people into those particular seats. Now, I don't go so far as to think we're job matching or making those things happen. But I know, we as the church are missing a good bit of our call if we're not taking those top-level C-suite kinds of folks, and discipling them deeply and well. So, that's the overall vision for the club.
DC: Okay, and how do you guys do that? That sounds amazing.
CT: Well, thank you. It's been a thrill ride for me. So how do we do that? Well, sort of in our widest audience, I guess you would say our widest availability. We do online social media content. We have our own podcast called Nuance. We have a newsletter and other electronic media videos as such that I'd invite anybody to go subscribe to or see more on CollaborativeOrlando.com. But then kind of that next level, we will do gatherings called Six Questions. These are luncheons where we bring in a community leader and we sit in the position of inquiry and curiosity. So it's not like you bring in the perfect businesswoman whose testimony is incredible, and she's made millions of dollars. There's a place for that. But we want to hear from the mayor, a supreme Florida Supreme Court Justice, developers in town who may or may not be people of faith. But what do you think of the Christian community? How can we be most helpful now, we've put those forums on hold, but we want them to come back. We also have short-form courses, etc.
CT: Then the next layer, we do a thing called Vocational Guild. And we've written this curriculum in a vocational guild as a small group experience with folks from the same industry. So a group of lawyers, a group of real estate commercial guys. We've done a stay-at-home parent one, because all vocations matter. We did and we've got one right now going for it. They go through this six-month, I'm sorry, six-week experience that dives deep into the theology of work. We operate mostly with a very poor or shallow theology of work that's more shaped by culture. So, it really has been fruitful. In fact, we are going to stretch into another arena. We had a local community bank, in conversation, come to us and say, hey, can we use that for our own executives and team building? Absolutely. And so they had a tremendous experience and they're wanting to do more. Finally, our tightest and deepest wells are fellowships. I am convinced that a Sunday School small groups, they only do so much and not going to be able to do enough in discipleship for the future that the church holds in America. So what is a fellowship? It is a long, intense experience that is based in community, and it pairs all of our programs, pairs spiritual formation with the intellectual exercise.
CT: That to me was one of the geniuses that Keller and Redeemer show is, I can pour a lot of information up here in my head look at but I've got all these holes in my head, I've got two nostrils, two ears, and I mean, it's gonna lake, right, over time. But if you form and shape the heart, like that good Georgia red clay that I grew up with. I mean, it is hard to get unformed and it lasts for decades. So we have three kinds of fellowships. The first one we call Orlando Heart of the City Fellows. It is a 10-month experience for a recent college graduate. They live in one of our church families' homes. We help them find a local job Monday through Wednesday. We try to get it in their field of interest. I teach them a faith and work course on Thursdays and a biblical narrative course. They also have small group time and local leader. And then the year is filled with mission trips, retreats, great experiences. So it's a year of integrating faith and we're deeply before they either launch or go on to graduate school. It's affiliated with the TFI, The Fellows Initiative, which is national ministry with about 27 chapters. And the statistics are true. 70% of your fellows end up staying in your community, if not actually your church. And what's beautiful is we could probably find 150 people in our church, who have touched the program in some way, as a host home, a job giver, etc. And so, as a pastor, I'll tell other pastors, you want a golden bullet to jumpstart your church. Look at The Fellows
CT: Second, we have the Orlando, I'm sorry, we have the Gotham Fellowship. And you may be familiar, it is a program directly out of Redeemer, we licensed it with them. It's a nine-month, graduate level type intensity for Christ in our professionals, aged 25 to 70. And then we have a new thing we just started this year, we're about to start our second one called the arts, The Arts Fellowship Orlando. And there we take five artists who are experienced, these are people who like to do heavy art. But experienced Christian artists do a six-month discipleship program, they get a $5,000 grant to create a project of some sort maybe advance a project they've had sitting on the shelf. And then in June, we rent the big downtown theater. And last year, we had 300 people come out and they perform or present their projects, and talk about their work of art and integration. So that's a lot but we're trying to be intentional with a variety of avenues and with a focused theology and message.
DC: That's amazing. To me, it sounds to me, like the core of all this, from a stewardship perspective would be about stewarding the influence that God's given you, is that right?
CT: Sure, well, and I have to be careful when I say this because there is not an attempt to be exclusive or aristocratic. But I mean, it is an approach to the 5%, the top 2%. And absolutely, you got to get your local mission and global mission work in place. But that's often when we've got a homeless ministry. We work with a foster care ministry. I mean, you cannot forget the vulnerable and but most mission works from the bottom up in society, especially when you get the global context. But we've also got to be focused on the top 2%. Because if you think, think how much influence the men and women in Hollywood, on Madison Avenue and Wall Street have on our daily lives, and if they lose the Christian story, if the Christian values that may rattle around in some degree of our culture anymore, I mean, we've got to have sharp, well-trained disciples in those places.
DC: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious about your background. How did God prepare you years earlier on to get to where you are today?
CT: Well, I was very blessed to grow up in a Christian home. We were cultural Christians, though. It was later through great influence of our youth and children's director that my parents came to faith and I did as well. But also my dad is a pretty impressive guy. He had three very successful careers in three very different ways. He served in the military base And then he got his master's and then getting his doctorate in the direction of television journalism and a little TV show and was working for the extension service with farmers and helping in the communications of that. Well, but then his father, who was a Southern belle executive, Nobel South was retiring, and had a couple of Dairy Queens on the side. So my dad said, let me buy one. So from there, he went on to open the second Dairy Queen in a mall in the US and numerous more laundromats, rental properties. I mean, it was the 80s, yuppie small businessman thing. And he did very well financially.
CT: And then he hit a wall in his early 40s, and had a spiritual renewal, recognizing, you know, it's not about the money. And I need to be the husband God wants me to be. I need to be the Father God wants me to be. So he sold all the businesses and kept the properties and said, I want a 9-to-5 job. And he went into business with a buddy doing petroleum financing and that to the end of his career. So, I had a model who was in a variety of different work-type roles but also one who had a dramatic turning point in his faith and work integration. And you know, honestly, you guys, I don't know that I really put that together until I just answered you.
DC: That's because you need to see your father go through that. Because you were there right watching him just switch his direction.
CT: And I remember the summer, he was in this transition and he very beautifully thought, I'm going to catch up on a number of years of not being so present. And we went to several Braves games in Atlanta and Science Museum for kids, and we go play tennis and do stuff, and I mean, proud of it. He was involved and no doubt ever of his love for us. But he had that, I guess, pushed by God that there's more things than just the material. And he's rechanneled that.
DW: Case, do you think there was a particular catalyst to that?
CT: There was, I don't know if you or your listeners may be familiar, but the Walk to Emmaus, it was, and it's still around, but it was a very popular retreat for laypeople. Began at the Catholic Church in Spain in the 40s. And it is a very intense weekend, where the love of Christ is presented in some very unique and powerful ways. Some talks are given that's mixed some good solid theology and testimony. And I call it an experienced kind of wake-up (inaudible). It's not so designed for the non-believer to meet Christ, although that happens, but it's really for that kind of average churchgoer to recognize, wow, this is what a life of discipleship looks like.
DC: Wow. That's neat. I wonder, what are some of the things that you've learned along the way in this journey that you maybe didn't expect to learn?
CT: It is so incredibly difficult to recruit for a number of our programs. And I'll be honest, like, I mean, the six months leading up to Gotham Fellowship, if I want to find 10 to 12 people, because it's that unique, very unique person that wants to read 100 pages a week, that wants to get up every Wednesday morning, from 6:30 to 8:30. And I mean, it's hard. And I say we're not tiptoeing through the tulips. So, the recruitment for that is intense and a lot. Our vocational guilds, recruitment is intense, it takes a lot of work. I think I assumed there was more of a hunger for faith-work integration. And realizing, as a pastor, boy, I've got a lot of plans for your life, right? I mean, our whole church has embraced faith and work, and they hear it in the sermons, they hear it in worship. But still, that's been difficult to do. And then convincing someone that the spiritual formation side is even more important than the intellectual side. I'm a nerd, and I'm known to be the teacher and I think a lot of people think, oh, Collaborative stuff, just more books and nerdiness. And I try to convey, look, there's a lot of intense theology, but every program is 51% prayer. It's learning the spiritual formation tools that get you through and get you a rich life in Christ you probably thought you were setting up for.
DC: Yeah, the recruitment is hard. I resonate with that. I run Journeys of Generosity, as often as the calendar allows, a faith-driven entrepreneur group. And, you know, you got to send out 100 invites to get 10 people even to respond. And I cover these things in a lot of prayer. Like, you know what God brings who he wants to be there. And you know, last JoG I did, one person showed up, even though like eight RSVP'd. And it was still a great time, he still wanted to go through all the material. And like, okay, I guess that's what God had for us today.
CT: And every person that does go through it, they're like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe. And you're just like, how do we bottle that and share that with the next person?
DW: Absolutely. So, I wanted to ask a question about, like, how do you get involvement from different participants in the church and involved in these different ministries and everything? What does that look like?
CT: Well, I guess it goes back to my statement, how do you bottle this? To me, it's the peer-to-peer testimony. Because, sadly, executives, professionals will often look at pastures and some don't have much respect, I get that. Or some do have respect and understanding but the skill set is so very different, the environments are very different. So I have found when you look at another banker, you look at another hospitality manager like you will listen better. Number two, though, I'm already a curious person, I take the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, I have found when with someone whether it's over a meal or not, I mean, I'm just curious about their jobs. And I dig and I often encourage other pastors, you need to know some basics on business and some basics in the marketplace. And so I'm always trying to find out, okay, how does that work? And where's the profit? And how do you manage people? And so it helps, I think, to speak other's language.
DW: So Billy Graham said that the next great revival will happen in the marketplace. What do you think about that?
CT: I agree, but I don't agree because I'm a champion, and I lead this kind of ministries, and I want people to be in it, right? I agree because when the faith and work movement, well, let me back up. So, marketplace ministries are important, very important, but I wouldn't describe what we're doing in The Collaborative as a marketplace ministry. I've, in fact, we here first historically have three unbelievable marketplace ministries, one of which has gone national.
DC: What are those? Just for our listeners? Can you define that a little bit and maybe give some examples of marketplace ministry?
CT: For sure. So The Gathering of Men, a wonderful, gathering place, Thursday lunch, to hear an inspirational speaker and then break off into small groups from there, and it's a great place, you can bring a co-worker. So, that has chapters all over the country. A second one that has grown all over the country is called Lifework Leadership, and two elders in our church, one of whom is a work colleague with my wife, again, sort of like leadership. I know that a lot of cities will do leadership rally, Leadership Orlando, Leadership New York. It's the same kind of thing, but with a Christian worldview and perspective on it. They meet once a month, for a full day over the course of eight, nine months and get great inspiration and training. And then there's a third ministry that's local here. I've gotten by one of our elders called J4. And it's a woman who is a top executive in one of the bigger companies here, actually the only fortune 100 or 200, I think, that comes from Orlando. And she had a heart for executive women who are Christ followers. And so she gets that from Judges 4 and that's great.
CT: So I have done a lot with Collaborative. I don't want to make competition and I want to build allies. And I feel really been able to do that and they would agree and this is why. Marketplace ministry is needed. Historically it has focused on evangelism and ethics. Need it, needed. We need to be witnessing to our co workers and we need to be following a moral path that represents Christ. Be like though the faith and work movement that Keller has absolutely gotten going. Tom Nelson made flourish. Very close with him was actually the Made to Flourish co-leader here in Orlando for a number of years. And this, this movement, it truly is a movement. And so at the time, I was asked, is this just another fad ministry? We did Purpose Driven Life and look how that ran it's course. And we had Emergent Worship, look how it ran its course. And at first, I thought, yikes, maybe it is. But I don't think so now, and this is why. You see the faith and work movement happening at so many different levels and in so many different institutions. It's in churches. It's in the nonprofit expression, like the Denver faith and work. Our friends over there. It's in seminaries and colleges like the Pew Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary. There are think tanks that will put full staff or money in this direction, foundations investing, publishing houses getting into this right now, media, I mean, you don't, Feds don't run the gamut of those major institutions. And because it is, I think, it screens. There's a problem, there's a gap. And we better hurry and fill it before the church gets too weak and small in the American context. And not just out of oh, this guy's following with the chicken little perspective, but it works. And it's where people spend most of their time.
DC: Yeah, I think there's a huge hunger for it, a lot of demand, so to speak, in the church and Christians' hearts realizing there's a disconnect here. You know, I live my religion on Sunday, and get back to work on Monday and we've missed it over the last decades.
CT: Well see, but that's where I struggle because like I said earlier, as pastor, I've assumed so many people would jump on this. So I think it's like, sometimes you have to convince somebody they're sinful before they can understand the gospel. I think the darkness is so real, the disconnect is so wide for your good Christians, solid churchgoers that even convincing them that there's a third way here and once that happens, they're off and running.
DC: So it's an educational struggle. It's an uphill battle, and even making people see the need.
CT: Well, and so like, we have about 70 Gotham alumni now in Orlando. We're about 45-ish Orlando fellows. They're off and running. And they're leaving our vocational guilds and they're soaking up our content and because they've been convinced.
DC: Right. Interesting. Have you got any interest in expanding to other cities? Or do you have a real heart for your city like, I'm at my capacity? I'm interested in that.
CT: Yeah. I mean, if the Lord made that happen, I do think, we've got something to share. But no, I mean, our focus is solely here. Very grateful for the greater faith and work community and it's strong. Like I am regularly in touch with counterparts and peers all over the country and these things, and that's good. In fact, foundations and think tanks and stuff, will put money into bringing us together and helping us get nurtured as well. But yeah, I mean, our church is 146-year-old church in downtown Orlando, and we love this place. We love this city. And we want to see our city better and stronger.
DC: Well, I wonder if other people listeners, for example, hear this and get excited about it? Is there a way that you can share what you've learned so they can go start something similar in their city?
CT: Sure. So you know, email me, let's talk. I get a lot of phone calls. CollaborativeOrlando.com is our site and we've, we just did a refresh in designing it. And there's lots of great content on there. But also links and referrals to other organizations around the country. Made to Flourish has a wide reach geographically. They're shifting a bit with their city network approach. There may be a city near you where at least there's a concentrated group of folks in that regard. Yeah, I mean, email me, casethorp@gmail.com. Casethorp@gmail.com. No E at the end. Would love to help.
DC: Do you guys collaborate with Faith-Driven Entrepreneur as well? It seems like right in the same lane as them.
CT: We, so, this was kind of fun. An entrepreneur from my congregation came to me and said, hey, I have a passion for that ministry and their satellite program. And so we partnered and lifted it up and got a crowd together to watch and their content is fantastic.
DC: That's neat.
DW: So Case, you know, we learn a lot from our success, but also we learn a lot from failure. Is there a failure in this journey, or maybe one that you've learned a lot from and you'd like to share?
CT: Sure. Well, so for instance, like I mentioned, The Six Questions Luncheons which were so successful, that we put them on pause. And there's a reason for that. But there was a lesson in that, that I've learned for the next time we do them. And this is, I mean, let me say, this reason and this lesson, are in the face of unbelievable fruit, right? I mean, they were well attended, great buzz, great content, some of which is on the website. So for whatever that's worth, the failure was, there wasn't yet, at that time, full institutional buy-in for the work of The Collaborative. And so it stressed out other departments. And that and there was a willingness there to partner and help make things happen. But there wasn't the built-in capacity in like facilities and communications and all the other places that attend.
CT: Well, that very reason right there, though, led to this other dynamic was we as a church, five years ago, or so, hit the pause button on everything. We wiped the slate clean, because let me tell you, First Presbyterian Orlando it was, hopefully it's changing the epitome of the attractional church. The epitome. Come here, come here, come to our bookstore, come to our rent ministry, come to you know, that's all about coming here. So our leadership team, we got hardcore consultants, our whole session, and we have been moving in the missional direction explicitly. And what I love is I've done a lot of consulting, work myself, but also with others. And a lot of times they leave the reports on the table and nothing changes. Well, it worked this time. And so, my point in that is there is much greater agreement now of where our energy is going to go, what's most strategic. I'm grateful that a whole lot of the things that Collaborative introduced in the way of missional thinking and missional organization and activity helped to shape a lot of this conversation. So looking back, though, I felt the failure was I wasn't sensitive enough to capacity. And I hadn't done the groundwork yet to get others going in the right direction.
DC: It seems like an interesting tension to, you know, what do you build first, when things kind of need to grow together, right? Capacity and...
CT: You need to faith and work, right, like any organization struggles with that. I think the other feeling of failure right now for us is on this assumption that vocational guilds would be hugely popular and engaged. And those that do it, my goodness, they're on board. Like this company, this bank is asking for round two. But convincing people is hard. It's hard.
DC: Yeah, that's interesting. I wonder if there's a common reason you know, people like I'm just too busy, or they believe they're too busy or if they're, like, resistant to the potential growth that they know growth is hard. I don't know. I just wonder what some of the common reasons are why people are unresponsive when we invite them to things like this?
CT: Busyness, absolutely. However, you do what you want to do. I mean, oh, I'm too busy, but I really need a tan so I'll go to the tanning salon. So, I don't buy that one so much. It's, as we've said, people don't really see the need. I would also add, when we were creating The Collaborative, especially when we got with our communications department and narrowed in on our brand. So, if you go to the website, you'll see it's a very neutral brand intentionally. We didn't want to just screen Christianese and not allow for bigger conversation. But at that time, the director of communication said something brilliant. And she said, Case, you need to keep in mind, this is an entirely new and different thing and people don't have a category already in their head with us. She said, you know when Diet Coke comes out with Lime Diet Coke, you're like, yeah, gotta go with lime. You've got a category. Missional ministry is so unique and but a unicorn right now. Be patient. Let things grow slow. Pour meaning into your brand that is different and give people time to get their minds around the difference.
DC: That's really encouraging. I've really been encouraged by your experience in this because I'm trying to do similar stuff in my area with faith and work, you know, and in generosity and stewardship and things like this. And there's so little responsiveness from people that I know and love and it's so confusing to me. Why wouldn't my best friend show up to this thing I'm doing, right? So it's very helpful.
CT: Well, not to throw your best friend under the bus. I do not know. But I also think this is a higher level of discipleship ask and experience. Maybe somebody needs to kind of get the biblical narrative down first. Or maybe you need to have some degree of a prayer life. Am I expecting and asking people to go do the long jump in the Olympics before they've ever even been in high school? So, keep at it, for sure. Don't pull back. But also, I think maybe I've had to reset expectations. One more encouragement, though, I hope. So you said you did a JoG and had one person come. So, my senior pastor grew up in Dallas, in the Roman Catholic Church, but at the Presbyterian Church, the boys played basketball. And in high school, he went every time and played. Well, there was an associate pastor at that Presbyterian Church who invited all the guys to come do a morning Bible study. My senior pastor was the only one that showed up. And that pastor said, one is enough for me, they sat there for nine months, and learned the whole Bible. And now look at where he is today preaching to thousands. So, if your financial model allows you to just focus on a few,
DC: Right, we just need to be faithful, right? This is what God gave me today.
DW: So going back a little bit to, you know, talking to somebody that, you know, might be sitting on the sidelines, or hasn't gotten the opportunity to experience what a deeper, deeper discipleship or deeper intensive group like this yields, maybe speaking to them for a minute, because I was, my wife and I, were thinking about this in the car the other day, and we were just thinking about, would we have grown spiritually, like we did over the last five or six years if we had not been pursued by mentors, and people that discipled us? They initiated, and then we kind of started to grow, and then we got hungry and then we were like, okay, we want, we want some more of this growth. But I think, I think we wouldn't have probably sought them out initially. And so I think it did take some of them to initiate the relationships. And then once we started getting discipled, and started to see the growth, you know, and it's not immediate, but over time, you know, the Lord working through people that are discipling or mentoring you you really see some of the growth. So maybe speaking to somebody who hasn't gotten to experience that yet. What would you say to them?
CT: Well, mentoring always works up. Mentoring always works up. Churches try to do these mentoring programs. I've not known one that succeeds, because it's too artificial. And it's, you hear, especially if you're a denominational church that's trying to shift to be more effective. You always hear oh, boy, we've got all these great older folks who have all this wisdom, and oh, the young folks don't know anything anymore, and why don't we get our old folks reach out. And I've never known one to work. But mentoring works up meaning if you're that 32-year-old guy growing in marketing. Go find the godly individual who knows that world or at least business in general, and pursue them. And I find, you know, if somebody is not willing to mentor or wanting to they'll make it clear, and they'll bail out, they'll not be available. But it always works best going up. So, I have a mentor, and he's made several but one in particular and it's my duty to keep in touch with him. It's my responsibility to let him know I need to talk or appreciate your wisdom. Now, he will check in and we see each other socially, but I just think it works up.
DC: Interesting. So to try to spur something on like that in a church culture, for instance. It seems like the younger people need to see the need once again before they're going to start seeking out mentors. People who think they've got it all together, don't look for mentors, right?
CT: You got to tell the story. So, get it in testimonies. Get a mentor and younger person up front to share about the experience. Tell that story in your communications, work it into pastors' illustrations.
DW: Yeah, that's good. Before we enter the mentor minute, speaking of mentors, is there anything else that you want to share with our audience that would be helpful to them?
CT: Well, kinda, we've been talking, if you're on the edge or curious, look, jump in to whatever faith and work opportunity is around you. Because it speaks so very deeply to the core of who we are as a begins, my goodness, how hard we work, and how much our jobs become part of our identity. If you are one who has a mature discipleship walk, still get involved. Because so my particular mentor when he did biblical entrepreneurship, he said to me, you know what Case, I've done all of this kind of stuff for 35 years in homebuilding. And I believed, didn't knew it but I never had it laid out for me, systematically. He said, I never figured out a way to convey or pass this along to my own son, my own company or those I'm mentoring. But now I've got a tool.
And then finally, If you are in a position of leadership, whether you own your company, whether you are a hiring manager of sorts, I'm not expecting or asking for you to make your workplace a church. But I do think there are ways you can express your worldview, from where you come, your reflections, the reasons why you do what you do. And that witness is very much needed. There are ways to talk about Christian values in secular terms, but also let it be explicitly known that I'm not here to punch out widgets. I'm here to glorify the Lord. I'm here to provide for my family, which glorifies the Lord. I'm here to all these godly reasons rather than just widgets.
DW: Yeah, that's good. All right case, who is the most influential person that you know, and how they impacted you?
CT: Oh, my goodness. The most, just one. Ah, wow. Y'all didn't warn me on this. You didn't warn me on this one.
DC: One of the most, maybe.
CT: Yeah. I gotta do one of the most. One of the most is a professor I had in undergraduate at Emory University named Bobbi Patterson. Bobbi taught in the religion department and she held very different political views than myself, very different theological views, for sure. And yet, to me, she had such a hospitable, welcoming spirit, and did not condemn or judge me for being an evangelical or whatever she thought about politics. And it just made me realize how important hospitality and generosity are and to embrace the other. I've got her picture right here on my desk for my day of ordination. And I've tried to model that in my ministry that actually is a big part of our podcast called Nuance where we're just asking our brothers and sisters to slow down a little bit in this cultural moment, and what does your hospitality and generosity look like? And how does it help your witness or not?
DC: Yeah, that's really neat.
DW: All right, and then what book or podcast has changed the course of your life? No pressure.
CT: Changed the course of my life? Well, "Lost Horizon" is my favorite novel. It's by James Hilton. And it was written in the ’50s after World War 2, and it's where we get the idea of Shangri-La from. They are a group of random people together on a plane that goes down in the Himalayas, and they discover this hidden city. It's run by Buddhist monks and yet, there is a Christian strength to it. That book is great to me not just because of any theological reason but the long conversations on the meaning and search for life, the adventure, "Lost Horizon". I try my best to read it at least once a year.
DW: And then what's the greatest lesson that you've learned about leadership?
CT: Hmm. Be real with everybody. Whether they're way down on the organization or above you, just authenticity. Don't be, you know, I've learned these lessons, don't be real in your negative, hungry, hangry kind of moments. Just try to be authentic and love and respect and dignify each person.
DW: Case, how can we be praying for you or your family?
CT: Thank you. My wife started a new business. And so, it's so much fun to see your wife grow. And it's doing very, very well. And so I just pray for her, also her father's ill, and it's not good. So just for the, we have a daughter going to college. So you know, the Thorp family's got a lot of transition and stress right now. That'd be great.
DW: All right. Well, let me pray real quick, and then we'll close out the show. God, we thank you and praise you for this time. I thank you for all the listeners. And I thank you for the wisdom that Case has shared with us today. I pray for his family and all the transitions they're going through. And I pray that you would bless their ministry and life. Lord, You are so good to us, you're guiding us every day. And we thank you and praise you for that. In Christ's name, I pray.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
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