Building Flourishing Workplaces - Jay Bransford | Faithly Stories

00:01 - Speaker 1 I think it felt like, you know, just a shot to the heart, like, oh my gosh, he's telling me I'm not going to have a job. Before I get to the States, I was trying to be this, you know, this proactive, good husband and father that was going to have a job, all lined up, and Steve here is telling me, no, that's not going to happen. And yeah, it was like a shot, like, oh my gosh, that was scary. Right, it was more and more fear of, oh my gosh, how long is it going to take me to find a job? How many months of having no money for our family are we going to be there? So it was scary. 00:30 - Speaker 2 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys, through their ministry work and everyday life Brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders. Learn more at faithly.co. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired on the Faithly Stories podcast. 00:58 - Speaker 3 Jay Bransford. Welcome to the Faithly Stories podcast. 01:02 - Speaker 1 Hey, Alicia, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. 01:13 - Speaker 3 It's great to have you. You are the CEO of Best Christian Workplaces, BCW. Can you start by just sharing a little bit more about your journey? What? 01:17 - Speaker 1 were you doing before BCW? Yeah, absolutely, Alicia. Happy to share a little bit about my journey. If I could first say, though, how excited I am about your launch of Faithfully, I just love the idea that you guys have come up with of providing a place, especially for pastors and staff and lay leaders in the church to experience Christian community and support and collaboration and to be able to connect and share stories and resources and plan events and even to find jobs. That is all awesome. So a big thank you. To connect and share stories and resources and plan events and even to find jobs, that is all awesome. So a big thank you to you and Danny for creating this new platform for the church world. 01:51 - Speaker 3 Thank you, we didn't pay him to say that, guys. 01:55 - Speaker 1 So back to your question what was I doing before joining Best Christian Workplaces about five years ago? Well so, in general, Alicia, I think of myself as an organizational development consultant, which is a bit of a boring mouthful, but it basically means that I like to help organizations become as effective as possible, and that's basically what I've done for the past 32 years since graduating from college. For the first dozen of those years after college, I consulted for large Fortune 500-sized companies, doing change management and leadership development and team development. But then, starting in 2005, which is about 20 years ago, my wife and I quit our jobs and we sold everything, including our house, and we became full-time missionaries in Asia. So it was quite a change and thankfully, my wife had served as a missionary for 12 years before we had gotten married and she was and is a gifted and experienced evangelist. So thank God that one of us knew what we were doing before we went on to the mission field evangelist. So thank God that one of us knew what we were doing before we went on to the mission field. 03:06 But for the next 16 years, she and I served as missionaries in a number of capacities and my primary role was actually as a consultant to other mission teams and mission leaders and Christian nonprofits across Asia, and then over the years I moved into various leadership positions within our mission organization, such as overseeing a large group of our missionaries fits across Asia. And then over the years I've moved into various leadership positions within our mission organization, such as overseeing a large group of our missionaries in northern Thailand. And then later I was asked by our mission organization to grow a ministry that was focused on developing the thousands of emerging mission leaders that our organization had across Asia. That ministry was and is called the Asia Leaders Learning Community and it's focused on equipping and connecting and resourcing mission leaders, both young and old alike. So, funny enough, Alicia, I think that ministry has a number of things in common with Faithfully, it's just that it's focused on missions and in Asia. But so at the same time, my wife and I on the mission field did a lot of traditional mission work with the poor and the needy, with orphans, with evangelism to villages that may have had no knowledge of Jesus and in the area of anti-human trafficking, and in that latter area my wife really took the lead and started some amazing ministries that I'm sure have impacted thousands of lives for the better. 04:29 But if we fast forward to 2020, five years ago, that's when our son, which is our only child he graduated from the international school that he had attended all of his life and he decided he wanted to attend university in Nashville, tennessee. So my wife and I had originally anticipated that we would take a year's sabbatical at that time and join our son in Nashville, but, much to our surprise, God ended up calling all three of us back to the USA. My wife and I thought we'd be on the mission field forever, but God clearly had different plans. So again in mid-2020, which is it was at the middle it's actually the beginning of COVID, right, we return to the USA with no jobs, virtually no belongings and nowhere to call home. But thankfully, our home church blessed us with a guest house to stay in for a while and, thanks be to God. Within about four months of being back in the USA, I was connected with Best Christian Workplaces which, as you know, is where I've now been for the past five years. So there's a little bit of my story. 05:41 - Speaker 3 Wow, thank you for taking us through that. Can I ask you one question about, like when you became a missionary? We've had a couple of folks on the podcast who felt the call from God to serve on the mission field. What was that moment like for you, especially from, like, the perspective of a consultant, right, like, how did you make that? 06:00 - Speaker 1 decision. I've met thousands of missionaries literally thousands of missionaries in our years and generally when you meet a missionary, they are so excited to be a missionary and they are excited to tell you how they got called and how, like, they knew from a young age and they were just so excited to go into the mission field. And that was not me. So I was this consultant. I thought of myself as this organizational development consultant, business world person had no missions experience whatsoever and I like to know what was going on in my life and know that I could predict my next paycheck, the way that I got called onto the mission field. I came home from work one day doing a. I was in the middle of a consulting job that I loved. My wife and I had actually just designed and built our own dream home that was five minutes away from where my office was and I was happy. My wife was happy, we had a two-year-old son. We were happy, everything was going well. 07:00 And I came home from work one day and I said to my wife I said I feel like we should pray about a small little tweak that God may want to make in my work and in my mind. What I was referring to was maybe a slightly new focus of what I'm doing with organizational development with this company that I'm working for. That's what I had in my mind and my wife said, sure, let's, let's pray about it tonight. And so we did. And that led me Alicia led us on a several month journey with God, of him basically trying to convince me that he actually wanted me to go on to the mission field. So that first day we prayed about it and we opened the Bible and we read some scripture and we were hoping that God would give us some. 07:43 Opened the Bible and we read some scripture and we were hoping that God would give us some clarity in the scripture we read and the only thing that stood out in that scripture was it happened to be a story about Paul and Barnabas getting sent out. And I looked at my wife and I said, okay, well, that didn't answer my prayer, let's try that again tomorrow. And basically for three months we kept praying into what's this change that God wants me to make in my work? And I wrestled with God for three months. I asked him a lot of questions about well, you can't be calling me out of the mission field, what about this. What about this? What about our financial situation? What about our son and our health care and our son's education? 08:21 - Speaker 3 And you had just built your dream home. 08:23 - Speaker 1 Yes, we had this perfect home. What would we do with that? And basically, long story short, God answered every one of my questions with a very reasonable, logical response and basically said you know what, I'll take care of all that. And answered everything I ever prayed about. He gave me a pretty clear answer from reading scripture and finally I gave in. So, Alicia, I gave in at the end and said, okay, fine, I'm going to believe that God's speaking to me. I'm worried that I'm crazy, but I'm going to believe that God's speaking to me and I'm going to say yes, even though I don't want to say yes, I really don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway because God's convinced me. So that's why I say my story is kind of unique. Most missionaries are so excited to go out into the field and for me it was with fear and trepidation, like oh my gosh, I hope I really heard God correctly. But you know, as I'm sure I'll share a little bit later, it ended up being an amazing experience. 09:19 - Speaker 3 Wow, thank you so much for sharing that, Jay. So much for sharing that, Jay. The other unique thing about your story is that the Lord didn't waste your background and your profession. You continued to be a consultant. In a lot of ways, you were right. It was a tweak, right. I mean maybe a bigger tweak than you envisioned, but it was a tweak. And so I appreciate how you distinguish between how you acted as a consultant on the mission field and the sort of traditional missionary work that you also did but that most people sort of just default to thinking of when they think about mission work. 09:56 - Speaker 1 Right right. 09:58 - Speaker 3 All right. So let's fast forward 20 years now. What drew you to BCW Best Christian Workplaces? Years now, what drew you to BCW Best Christian Workplaces? Was there a moment when you sensed God? 10:10 - Speaker 1 calling you into this new chapter of your career. Yeah, yeah, you know as much as I had, like I mentioned, all those fears and anxieties about quitting my corporate job. I think that actually was probably the closest I've ever had to a nervous breakdown is when I actually told my boss I was quitting. But although I had all those fears and anxieties, I have to say that those 16 plus years on the mission field were, like I said, incredible, life-changing and life-giving to me. They were difficult there's a lot of difficulties, hard things on the mission field but it was amazing and I think, like a lot of people who work in the church world can relate to this, it's difficult to beat living one's life for the sake of the gospel. It's really hard to beat that right. So eventually, the longer I was on the mission field, it became impossible really for me to think of doing any other kind of work Because I felt like, like you said, I felt like I had the best of two worlds. My work on the mission field allowed me to use that training and experience and gifting that God had given me, but he allowed me to do it in the context of helping other Christians and ministries be as effective as possible in accomplishing whatever God called them to do right. So it was an honor and a privilege, using my consulting for kingdom purposes incredibly purposeful, life-giving. So you can probably imagine that what it might have felt like when we decided to leave the mission field and return to the USA because we didn't know what was next. We came back to the USA having no idea what was next and I had a very hard time believing that any job I found was going to be anywhere as meaningful and as impactful as what I've gotten to do on the mission field for 16 years. So you can just say it's fair to say my expectations were quite low coming back to the US. And, by the way, Alicia, because I know a lot of your listeners are in the church world, for any pastors or church leaders that might be listening out there who have sent people onto the mission field from your congregation, you know when missionaries return from the field, they almost assuredly are going to feel a lot of the same things that I felt, that we felt when we came back, because re-entry, as it's called, it's extremely difficult and can even be depressing. 12:15 But anyway, back to the positive note. We serve a great God. He has a great plan for us, even when we don't see it, even when we don't know it, even when it's not in the timing we hope for and, thankfully for us, in our return to the USA we eventually did clearly see God's hand at work. So I guess, on that note, would you mind if I shared a little God story from my life and how that happened? I would love it, please do. Okay, love it. I always enjoy hearing people share God stories of how God moved in their lives and, who knows, maybe some of your listeners will find this helpful and relate to their situation. 12:47 So short story about how God led me to work at Best Christian Workplaces. It was about 18 months, a year and a half, before my wife and I knew we were going to be leaving the mission field from Thailand and returning to the USA, and I was already thinking, and admittedly worrying, about how I could financially support our family for what I thought was going to be a one-year sabbatical right. I was already worried about it, so I got on the internet a year and a half ahead of time. I got on the internet and started searching for Christian organizations in Nashville that I might want to work for in the future. And I eventually came upon what felt like a random search firm in Nashville that I could tell from their website was clearly Christian, and so I literally just cold emailed not cold called but I cold emailed the CEO of that organization, of that executive search firm in Nashville, and I explained in the email my situation and I basically just asked if he knew of anyone who might want to hire me the following summer, like a year, almost a year and a half later. 13:55 So you can imagine it's kind of a crazy email to send, like who sends an email saying will you hire me in a year and a half or do you know somebody who might hire me in a year and a half? So in retrospect it was a very random email to send and to receive, but to my amazement, the CEO of that search firm by the way, his name is Steve Hayes. For anyone who knows him, steve is an incredible man of God, steve the CEO. He emailed me back within 24 hours, and not just that, but he said he'd like to have a video call with me. And I was just blown away Like what? How did? Why? Would this guy want to waste his time with some random person on the other side of the world, right? So so I jumped on the opportunity and and, and Steve was and is incredibly kind and encouraging and he was really that way with me on the call. But he also gave me some very sobering advice. He was honest, and so Steve told me. He said don't bother trying to find a job in the USA while you're still living outside of the USA, he said. He said virtually no one's going to even want to talk to you, let alone hire you. So instead he suggested that I start networking a year, a year and a half early and that when, as soon as I arrived in the USA, he said then start your job search. So I thanked him. 15:10 Now, fast forward, 16 or 18 months later, when we finally arrived to Nashville and I thankfully I'd taken Steve's advice and I had networked with anybody and everybody I could think of in the Nashville area and I let him know in advance that we would be coming. I'd be looking for a job. But now that I was on the ground, I started meeting with any contacts that I had who were willing to meet with me, again in the middle of COVID, when people were wearing masks and didn't want to see anybody face-to-face. I tried to connect with people. I used all the job boards out there and I filled out many, many online applications, and so that went on for a few months. So again, remember, this is part of many, many online applications. And so that went on for a few months. So again, remember, this is part of, I think, a pretty cool God story here. 15:52 So one day, a few months later, I received an email from a search firm, and it was asking if I knew of anyone who might be interested in working with Best Christian Workplaces as their new president. Now, I had never heard of Best Christian Workplaces, and probably many of your listeners have never heard of it. But, funny enough, I had never heard of Best Christian Workplaces and probably many of your listeners have never heard of it. But, funny enough, I had heard of the search firm, because it turned out that that search firm was the search firm that Steve owned, that I'd randomly reached out to 18 months earlier. Right, and of course, you might be thinking well, so how and why did you receive an email from them? Well, it was purely I mean, it was a God thing. It was purely because I had followed Steve's advice, I had networked and I had talked to people, and one of my friends I had networked with in Nashville had been contacted by Steve's firm about this job with Best Christian Workplaces and he said I'm not interested, but you might want to check with this guy named Jay. And so I got connected with BCW because I followed Steve's advice and it turned out I mean, this has got to be a God thing, right. It turned out that BCW had hired Steve and his search firm to help them find their next president. And suddenly, you know, God make this full circle thing and suddenly I'm reconnected with Steve talking about this job opportunity at BCW. 17:06 So, and not just that one other thing job opportunity at BCW. So, and not just that one other thing when I read the job description and about the work of Best Christian Workplaces, it literally read like to me the most ideal job I could dream of, right. So I actually remember reading the job description out loud to my wife and hearing her laugh. And my wife and I have a history of her laughing when God is speaking to me. So it was one of those times. 17:34 But my wife, when I read the job description, she truly thought I had made the whole thing up. She thought I had made it up and I was just simply reading to her what my ideal job would be. So she was shocked to find out that that was a real job description, or that was a real job that people were looking for. And I was shocked and eventually, you know, very humbled that BCW ended up choosing me for the job Because it gave me this chance to keep working for Christian-led organizations, including churches, who wanted to be as healthy and effective as possible in achieving their God-given purposes. I mean, wow, that's exactly that was my heart right. So it's crazy to me how God perfectly arranged all of that and I'm super thankful. So that's how I got to be here, Alicia, and thanks for letting me share that story. 18:15 - Speaker 3 That is so great. That's such a great God story, and there's a few things about the story that I'd love to ask you about. The first is when Steve gave you that advice don't search for a job now, just network. How did that feel to you? Was there a part of you that was like dejected and disappointed because that's not what you wanted to do? 18:37 - Speaker 1 Absolutely. I think it felt like, you know, just a shot to the heart, like, oh my gosh, he's telling me I'm not going to have a job. Before I get to the States, I was trying to be this, you know, this proactive, good husband and father that was going to have a job, all lined up, and Steve fears telling me, no, that's not going to happen. And I yeah, it was. It was like a shot, like, oh my gosh, that was. That was scary, right, it was more and more and more fear of oh my gosh, how long is it going to take me to find a job? How many months of having no money for our family? Are we going to be there? So it was scary. But you know, obviously, Alicia, in retrospect, I think God used Steve to speak to me. Steve's a very wise guy and it was good advice. 19:16 - Speaker 3 Sometimes, when God has something to tell you, it can feel disappointing, but you know the right advice when you hear it. So, for those who may not be familiar, can you talk about what BCW offers to churches and other Christian workplaces? 19:36 - Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely so. 19:37 At the highest level, best Christian Workplaces exists to help churches and any other Christian-led organization to create healthy, flourishing workplace environments, and the hope is that those healthy workplace environments then attract people to Jesus. 19:55 But they also increase the kingdom impact of that church or organization. So we know from research that if organizations are healthy, if people in the organizations are healthy and flourishing, that you're going to get great results right. So that's why we exist is to help that happen. And to that end at BCW we have a world-class employee engagement survey and that serves as the starting point for measuring employee engagement and the health of somebody's workplace culture, and most organizations we work with use our employee engagement survey annually. And then we also provide leadership assessments and coaching and some consulting services. All that help build and maintain healthy workplaces. So basically, we're helping organizations measure the health of their employee engagement and their overall culture, and then we're giving them a roadmap and some resources for growth and for health, and our tools are all faith-integrated but also rooted in organizational best practices. So that's it in a nutshell, but I'd be happy to give you a little bit more background if you like. 20:59 - Speaker 3 Yeah, well, I was wondering if perhaps you can share either a story or an example of how your resources and methods, how your work, has helped to transform a Christian organization. 21:12 - Speaker 1 Absolutely so. One example that you can actually also read about in our book called Road to Flourishing so if it's visible in the video, there's a book there behind me, but you can read about this in the book. But it's from Flatirons Community Church and they are one of Colorado's largest churches and they have experienced rapid growth over the years. But when we first started working with them, which is, I think, around six years ago, they were going through rapid growth, but they were also facing an unhealthy workplace culture. So in 2019, we first started working with them and their use of our employee engagement survey revealed some significant issues which prompted their church's leadership executive pastor, senior pastor. It prompted them to make a key decision. 22:05 They decided to prioritize the well-being of their staff over their growth, their church growth and their church giving. And if we think about that, pause and think for a minute that is a huge decision to make. For a pastor to say, the well-being of my staff is more important than my church growth and the financial numbers and giving. That's huge. So they made that huge decision and they embarked on a multiple year journey with us to transform their culture, and they focused on using honest assessments like our employee engagement survey. They redefined their core values, they empowered their mid-level managers. They did a bunch of things, and this approach they took led them to eventually successfully create a flourishing workplace culture at Flatirons and really demonstrating that intentional efforts like that can absolutely revitalize any organization and their health. And I can even share you a quote, if you like, from their executive pastor. 23:06 Yeah, please, absolutely a quote, if you like, from their executive pastor. Would you like to hear that? Yeah, please, absolutely. So this is what their executive pastor had to say after working with us for five years on their employee engagement and improving their culture at Flatiron. So, executive pastor Jesse DeYoung, he said after five years. He said with a healthy culture, we can move fast. Healthy culture, we can move fast, we can run really hard and we can enjoy what we're doing. So we never want to go back to the way it was. He said, when you're aligned and healthy, the staff are more confident, from your frontline staff to the lead pastor, and our congregation senses the unified direction and the momentum. So, Alicia, that's just one example of many, many I could share that we've been blessed to be a part of at BCW. Just an example of a transformed workplace culture and, I think, as a result of sincere efforts by senior leaders and pastors over multiple years to keep measuring their workplace engagement and take focused action. 24:08 - Speaker 3 That is a really really great story and a really encouraging one, because, you know, I know a lot of churches and a lot of church leaders. I don't know any who don't want to be a good employer, who don't want their church to be a great workplace. This might be a loaded question, but how do churches normally perform as employers? 24:31 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that's an interesting question, Alicia. How do churches normally perform as employers? Oftentimes, they probably don't think of themselves as an employer. They think of the church right, but they're also an employer. I'd say there's definitely a wide range of workplace environments that we see in the churches we work with, according to their survey results. But I say there's some great news. The great news is that last year in our work with churches— 43% of the churches that we surveyed fell into the category of what we call flourishing, flourishing culture flourishing engagement 43% of churches fell in that category and another 41% were in what we call the healthy category, which is not yet flourishing but healthy. 25:14 So that's a total of about 84% of the churches we worked with last year that are doing pretty well, and that left about 16% of churches that we surveyed who did not have healthy workplaces according to their staff engagement level. So I think you already know this, Alicia. But Best Christian Workplaces is considered a research institute, so along with that, we publish an annual report called the State of the Christian Workplace Report, and that report provides what I think is extremely insightful data about the strengths and the weaknesses of Christian workplaces overall. Plus, our report divides it up into sectors so you can see how the church workplace is doing, and nonprofits and educational institutions and businesses. So, for example, you can see from our data specifically how well churches are doing in the area of employee engagement and in workplace health and in what areas in general churches can improve. So, if you're interested, I'd be happy to share a few of the strengths that we've identified in the last year. 26:15 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I'd love to hear the strengths and I'd also love to hear the areas that can be improved too, where churches maybe are getting it wrong sometimes. 26:23 - Speaker 1 Absolutely, absolutely. So I'll start with the strengths, the good stuff, you know. Of our 56 items we ask in our survey that assess eight, what we call eight key drivers of employee engagement. This past year, churches did best in the following three areas there's a lot of strengths, but I'm just going to highlight the top three did best in the following three areas there's a lot of strengths, but I'm just going to highlight the top three. So, according to our data, the first strength in the church world is that 95% of church staff agreed in the last year that their supervisor cares about them as a person. And I want to stop there for a second, because that may sound like not a big deal thing, but if you think about it, Alicia, if you put yourself in the shoes of someone who serves on staff at a church you know, think about how might it affect your energy and your passion and your enthusiasm and your commitment to the church. If you felt like your supervisor really cared about you as a person, how would you feel, do you think? 27:18 - Speaker 3 Really like. That is a game changer. That's the kind of place where you want to be. 27:22 - Speaker 1 Absolutely exactly. It's hugely important that people feel valued and cared for at work. It's hugely important. So it's really encouraging to see that, you know, 95% of church staff feel that way Awesome. 27:35 Second biggest strength that we identified is that, again, 95% of church staff said that they feel like their church reflects Christ to the world. And again, right off the bat, you might think, well, isn't that the reason churches exist? To reflect Christ to the world? Absolutely yes, it is. But at the same time, Alicia, you and I know, we all know we hear reports in the news all too often about churches that are not operating in healthy ways or maybe have pastors who've acted in a way that has brought negative attention to the church and maybe even led some people to question the morality or the relevance of the church as a whole. Right, so really reflecting Christ to the world is enormously important and it's again just really encouraging to see that 95% of church staff feel that that is true. 28:21 And then, if I just, if I pick a third thing, the third highest scoring area in our data showed that 94% of church staff say they are motivated to put in extra effort to help their church succeed. And that's what at Best Christian Workplaces. That's what we call an engagement indicator. It's a dependent variable of our survey because it's kind of part of the definition of engagement if people are willing to go over and beyond. So it's really wonderful to see that many almost all church staff are so happy with their workplace environment that they're willing to go over and beyond in service to their church. So those are a few of the areas where churches tend to do really well as employers in creating healthy workplace environments. 29:05 - Speaker 3 That's all really encouraging to hear. That's great. Thank you for sharing it. All right. So what about some of the not-so-great stuff? 29:12 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So while many churches do excel as employers at caring for their people relationally, many churches do excel as employers at caring for their people relationally. Our data shows that often churches can lack the structure of strong organizational practices and support. So, again, our 2025 State of the Christian Workplace report that came out earlier this year highlighted several top opportunities for churches to improve, and I can tell you what they were. So the first one is biggest opportunity or weakness in the church world this past year was effectively rewarding top performers. So 43% of church staff could not agree that they felt like their churches were rewarding them. Well, that's a lot. It's not quite half, but almost half of staff didn't feel like they were being rewarded for their contributions. Right, which doesn't have to be a financial reward, but it could be. 30:02 A second opportunity, according to the data, is that staff felt like they weren't being involved in decisions that affect them. So 36% of church staff couldn't agree that they felt like they were being involved in decisions at the church that affected them. Again, that's almost. That's over a third of your staff saying that. And then, similarly the third one, about 35% of church staff still over a third couldn't agree that their church leaders act on their suggestions. So maybe they're asked for their input or they give input, but they didn't feel like people are actually doing anything with their input. They're not acting on it. Almost over a third of staff saying that. So if I look at all the data overall for the past year, it tends to show that the churches this is a generalization, but churches often lag behind in areas like performance management and leadership development and even having healthy two-way communication systems in the church. 30:57 But I will say it might be encouraging to know that these challenges in the church aren't really just unique to the church. Nonprofits and schools face similar struggles. Oftentimes you'll have a great mission and a great purpose, but not always the healthiest systems in place to support that mission. And if I could, Alicia, I'll just say that it's tempting for leaders to assume, especially in the church world. 31:22 It's tempting to assume that just because I hire people who have a passion for the church and what we do and why we exist, that that automatically will create a healthy workplace environment. That's not actually enough. Sadly, that's not true, that you just have to hire people who are passionate about the church, because there's lots of other challenges that can be going on. You might have churches that have top-down leadership or a tendency to avoid difficult conversations, or they may not be listening to their staff or investing in their development. So many things could be going on that doesn't allow their staff to thrive. And again we see similar patterns with nonprofits and businesses. It's really a matter of where mission, focus or results or outcomes can sometimes overshadow leaders focusing on the well-being of their staff, so it can happen anywhere. 32:09 - Speaker 3 So I heard a few theories from you on like why it's the case that churches don't score as high in these areas. You mentioned systems. You mentioned missions being at the forefront. Do you have any? Do you think there's anything else that comes into play, like budgets? Maybe there's a layer of administration that doesn't exist in smaller organizations like churches? 32:30 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you know I think, in the church world specifically and this is true in the mission world that I was in as well you know we have people who come with a singular focus and experience and background and expertise, which is to share the gospel to you know, tell people about Jesus, to preach, to teach, to disciple, to evangelize. But it's harder in the church world and even in the nonprofit world, to find people on staff and to have the budget, as you said, to also do other aspects of organizational life. You know, do we have people who are great at HR and finances and accounting and A-roll and all the things that need to happen, and so oftentimes that's not a strength of an organization. They don't have people who have that background and experience. And when you don't have that background you probably don't even realize or recognize how important some of those things are, nor do you have the expertise on your team to do it. So I think a great starting point is just identifying where are we? 33:32 - Speaker 3 Right Awareness. Awareness goes a long way. Yeah, as I said, I don't know a single church leader who doesn't want to be a great employer, so I'm sure that when they find out that maybe they don't score as high in some of these areas, that just knowing that can go a long way. 33:46 - Speaker 1 Absolutely. 33:47 - Speaker 3 Yeah, okay. So for a church who maybe hasn't done one of your surveys or hasn't engaged your services, but they want to start on the journey of being a healthy workplace, what's one piece of advice that you can offer them to get them going? 34:03 - Speaker 1 Yeah, great question, I think, for leaders who truly desire to have a healthy and flourishing workplace environment that again honors God and drives impact and results that you want to see, like people coming to know Jesus or being discipled, I would say we almost always suggest that the place to start, the place to begin, is leaders listening to your staff. That's where to start. Where do I start? I start by listening to your staff, and there are many ways to listen to your staff. We suggest that churches start by utilizing an employee engagement survey, because that allows you to request safe and anonymous input from your staff. 34:43 And it's really tempting I've heard this many times, Alicia, from people to think that you can start listening. 34:49 Well, by directly asking people for their input in person or maybe via an internal survey you create. 34:56 But far, far, far too often trust is not high enough for people to be willing to share helpful and or critical feedback that directly, one-on-one, in a small group situation, in an internal survey, trust is usually not high enough for people to really feel comfortable sharing their real thoughts and opinions right, and that is why you need an anonymous survey opinions right, and that is why you need an anonymous survey, because, as leaders build trust through listening and responding to that feedback that they get on an employee engagement survey. 35:29 Then leaders are going to be able to engage more and more in those one-on-one conversations and ask further questions and learn even more from their staff. But you really need to start in a very, very safe environment where staff can experience that you asked them for feedback, you listened, you considered it, you prayed about it, you did something with it. You don't have to do everything people say, but you did something and there was no repercussion. Staff have to experience that before they're going to be willing to talk with you one-on-one and give difficult feedback. So it has to start by leaders building trust by demonstrating that you want people's input, you're willing to consider it and you'll prayerfully decide and act on what you learn. And I can say, Alicia, that leaders who are making small but consistent changes in their communication and leadership practices that can go a long way in building trust and in growing employee engagement. And again, these same principles apply across the board, not just in churches. 36:23 - Speaker 3 So how can leaders get their hands on the survey? Is that something you offer on your website? Do they need to call you up? 36:31 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you can easily access our, or at least register for our survey on our website. It's workplacesorg. Obviously there's a fee, but you can access the survey and sign up for it on our website. It's workplacesorg. Obviously there's a fee, but you can access the survey and sign up for it on our website and we've got some amazing customer support people who can help get it all set up for you. 36:48 - Speaker 3 BCW has some exciting things ahead that I'd love to ask you a couple final questions about. The BCW podcast is being relaunched in the new year. What can your listeners expect in this new season? What kind of voices are you hoping to highlight? 37:04 - Speaker 1 Yeah, thanks for asking, Alicia. We're excited about the future of our podcast. As some people may know our co-founder, al Lopez. He did an amazing job hosting our podcast for, I think, around the past 16 years. 37:19 - Speaker 3 Wow, I didn't know, podcast happened 16 years ago. That's amazing. 37:23 - Speaker 1 Yeah, isn't it? I mean, he jumped on it right away and he's recorded 449 episodes over that time, Alicia, so virtually every week. Al interviewed different Christian leaders, including many church pastors, about their journey on the road to creating a God-honoring, flourishing workplace, and it's just been extremely encouraging to hear those voices of so many successful leaders over the years, as they've shared their struggles and their victories, but really, just as they've demonstrated their commitment and their care for their staff and to their mission and to God, even by shepherding and leading. Well, right, that's what they've demonstrated in these podcasts. So, but as Al has moved further into his second retirement, he eventually felt it was time to turn the podcast over. 38:13 So, as you mentioned, we are in the exciting process right now of re-envisioning and relaunching our podcast, which we're planning for towards the end of this calendar year, and it'll be available both in audio and in video now and on all the typical podcast channels. And actually, Alicia, you and your audience are going to officially be the first to know the name of our new podcast it's going to be three words, called to Flourish, since we'll be exploring what it looks like to create an environment where your people and your organization truly do flourish, as God intends. 38:47 - Speaker 3 That's very exciting, Jay. Thank you for sharing that with me. I will be tuning into this podcast. You know, in a lot of ways we're at peak podcast right Like when you look across the landscape, but I still believe there is room and appetite and need for more Christian leaders' voices, I think, to be amplified, and if it can be combined with the wisdom and the resources that come from your organization, I think, even better. So I will be tuning in. You mentioned the State of the Christian Workplace report that you released at the beginning of 2005. And so I believe you'll have one coming out in the beginning of 2026. What kind of insights or data can leaders expect to get from that report? 39:36 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So the State of the Christian Workplace Report is something that we started publishing only about three years ago, but we've been collecting a vast amount of significant and meaningful data about workplace culture and employee engagement for over 20 years now. So we realized a few years ago that many Christian leaders would really be interested and blessed to be able to learn from that data, to learn from that data. So, yeah, the next State of the Christian Workplace report will be published around the February timeframe in 2026, after we've had a chance to evaluate and summarize all of our findings from 2025. But you know, I think it's going to be. 40:10 The report's going to provide really meaningful data that underscores how engaged Christian organizations currently are overall and for each sector. How engaged really is the church sector, for example, currently are overall and for each sector. How engaged really is the church sector, for example. The report's going to look at the top strengths and opportunities for each sector related to employee engagement, including the church, as well, as it's going to identify the strongest areas that affect employee engagement the most, what really draws people to be engaged the most. 40:36 We're going to highlight the trend data where each sector is getting better, where the church is improving and where it might be getting worse. And then we'll even provide some demographic results that show how different demographics of people might be experiencing the church differently. So demographics can include age differences, gender, ethnicity and more and more. But really the report is always interspersed with research findings, along with professional insight and suggestions from our team of experienced consultants, and I think it's going to prove to be very insightful for our readers, and we're excited about it coming out. Yes, by the way, sorry Alicia, I should mention that the report is free, so you can access the report directly from our website, workplacesorg, and then you can also have automatically sent to you if you signed up on our mailing list. 41:25 - Speaker 3 Great, great. Now it sounds like a really valuable tool that leaders should be dialed into early next year. All right, as we reach the end of our time here, Jay, I have one last question for you. You interact with so many different Christian organizations in your role at BCW. What is giving you the most hope about the future of the Christian workplace? 41:48 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, you know there's a lot of things going on in the world today that can be depressing. You know, a lot of division and hate and violence. Thankfully, for those of us who are believers, we know that we serve a mighty powerful, victorious God and that is probably the greatest hope we all have in general. But I think in terms of my work, the one thing that gets me most excited, most motivated and full of faith for the future is every time we, at Best Christian Workplaces, get to interact with yet another Christian leader who steps up and says I want to proactively choose and prioritize creating a workplace environment that is full of love and grace and truth and compassion. That is inspiring. Every time I meet a new leader who says that's important to me. 42:38 I want to make sure I do that, because those are leaders who are committed to a workplace culture that I think God would be proud of. You know they're committed to a workplace culture that reflects the nature and the character of God right and that serves to attract people to Christ. So you know, as more and more organizations to Christ. So you know, as more and more organizations. I know that as more and more organizations focus their efforts on reflecting Christ through their own personal behaviors and as well as through the behaviors and the actions of their organizations and how they treat one another. As that happens more and more, we're going to see more people turn into Christ. We're going to see more people being discipled into his image, and that is what gives me daily hope and joy is all those organizations and those leaders out there that are committing to this. That brings me hope and joy in what we get to be a part of at Best Christian Workplaces, wow. 43:31 - Speaker 3 I love it. Thank you. That is a great note to end on. Thank you so much for your time today, Jay. It's been a really inspiring and enlightening conversation. I really appreciate it. 43:41 - Speaker 1 Thanks, Alicia, I appreciate you having me on and bless you. 43:44 - Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. 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