February 26, 2024 Show with Jim Tyson on “Christian Professionals & Businessmen Carrying Out the Great Commission”

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I'm from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 26th day of February 2024, and today

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I have a first -time guest I'm really looking forward to our discussion today. I don't know how many of you are aware of this,

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I believe I may have mentioned it a couple of times at least on the show in the past, but every

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Wednesday, I attend a Bible study here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at Fay's Country Kitchen.

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There's a free plug there for that restaurant here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the study is led by folks who are involved in the

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Christian Businessmen's Connection, which is also known as CBMC, and this is not the only chapter they have.

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They have chapters all over the United States, and I believe overseas, and we'll find out more about that in a moment.

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But today we have the Area Director of CBMC of Central Pennsylvania, and he is

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Jim Tyson, and today we're going to be discussing Christian Professionals and Businessmen Carrying Out the

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Great Commission, the History, Purpose, and Mission of CBMC, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jim Tyson.

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Chris, it's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me, and I really look forward to our conversation today.

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And let me right away give our email address for our listeners in the event that there are any who want to ask questions about Christian Businessmen's Connection.

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The email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Well, we have a tradition here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jim, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they may have been raised, and the kinds of providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them.

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So I'd love to hear your story. Well, thanks, Chris, for the opportunity.

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I grew up as a teenager in the 70s, which was a somewhat tumultuous time.

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Lots of things happening, lots of changes happening in our culture in the 70s. But as a, oh, maybe five, six -year -old kid in the late 60s, my whole church experience was some

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Sunday school and church attendance up until I was about seven years old.

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It was my mom who took me there, but from that point, there was really no connection to church or faith in our household.

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Was that church a Bible -believing church, or was it a mainline church, a liberal church?

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Well, at that time, I guess it would have been not long after the merger with Methodist Church was the

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United Methodist Church. And the thing that I remember as a little kid, what you can remember from six years old, are the planograph stories of Jesus, right?

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So even though I grew up in a home that didn't really profess faith and didn't practice any kind of even religious type of activity,

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I still always had a belief in God. And growing up, like I said, through that time in the 70s as a teenager,

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I was a kid with some health issues and such, so I was never very active in sports and kind of an introvert to begin with.

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So I was somewhat isolated, and I remember as a maybe 15 -year -old kid sitting on my bed at a point in life thinking, you know, is this really all worth it?

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And a voice, not an audible voice, but in my head, I just heard,

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I have something for you to do. And it wasn't like, you know, that was it.

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And it was just something in there that said, OK, I need to keep going on.

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Now, that didn't cause any great change in my life at that time. Growing up in that period,

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I got involved with, you know, the drug scene and things like that. By the way, just to clarify, according to your story, were you contemplating suicide?

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Well, maybe not in a whole worked out plan, but just kind of questioning, is life really worth it?

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You know, like I said, as a teen, I didn't have a lot of friends and, you know, kind of spent that early part of life picked on a little bit because I wasn't athletic.

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I wasn't, you know, I had health issues. So, yeah,

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I was kind of in a point of despair, feeling a little alone.

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And I'd struggle with depression from time to time. And by the time

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I was 19, I ended up having a bad trip on LSD.

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Wow. And literally thought I was going insane. That was most of my stuff was not visual.

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It was mental because I just think a lot. I'm one of those classic overthinkers.

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And at that point, with that experience, I kind of said to myself, that's it.

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I'm changing some things about my life. And I did a 180 in a sense, but it wasn't necessarily, you know,

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I started seeking spiritually, but it wasn't it wasn't a conversion experience, if you will.

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I had enough knowledge of religion and such that I kind of tacked on a little morality to my life, basically.

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So I was in a real works oriented type of set up. I'm going to be good. And. It was it was during that time that I met my now wife.

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She was not a believer either. She was attending an Episcopal church. That we'd attended for a while, but we were still looking and seeking.

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And I had gotten involved with a with a business. My brother got us involved with a number of years ago.

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I don't know if you want me to say the name of it here. Sure. It was the Amway.

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And one of the things they used to do, if you went on a on a weekend, one of the weekend kind of conferences or whatever they had on Sundays, they would have preachers come in, at least the group we were involved in.

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And it was actually at one of those that we really first heard the gospel.

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And it was through that that the Lord brought us to himself, that he really kind of opens opened our eyes, both my wife and I, to to his grace.

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And it really is has been a process because it wasn't for for some time later that I really, really understood his grace.

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You know, initially we were involved a little bit with with an assembly of God church.

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In fact, the Bible college I went to was an A .G. Bible college. And it was there that my theology kind of changed from from an

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Arminian to a reformed perspective at an assemblies of God Bible college.

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Wow. Yeah. Well, I'll just just to let you know, I know that it is unusual for reformed theology to exist in the assembly of God.

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But I have at least two dear friends.

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One of them is in heaven now. My friend Al Stein, who was not only the pastor of the

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Neighborhood Assembly of God in Belmore, Long Island, but he was a bishop.

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He was an overseer of the Assembly of God churches on Long Island. And when I first met him, he was not thoroughly reformed.

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But in the latter years of our friendship, before he went home to the Lord, he was a full blown five point

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Calvinist. And he was able to get away with it in the assembly of God by because they have this strict prohibition of believing in eternal security.

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And he had to sign a document, I think, annually. And he would get around that by saying,

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I believe in evidential security. If somebody is truly secure in their salvation, their life will produce evidence.

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And they were satisfied with that. And so much so that they made him a bishop. And he was tragically killed in an automobile accident.

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But my other friend, Dan Buttafuoco, whose ads are heard on the show for the Historical Bible Society, a ministry that he runs, through my friendship with him and through my giving him the book,

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Grace Unknown by R .C. Sproul, which I believe today has been retitled,

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What is Reform Theology? When I first gave that book to Dan for Christmas years ago, this would have been back in the 1990s, he said, are you kidding me?

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You're giving me propaganda for Christmas. And then he called me on New Year's Day and said,

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Chris, I have been up all night. I read the book from cover to cover. I believe every word of it.

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You got me. Or should I say the Lord got me because I am reform now. But anyway,

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I interrupted you. So it's really about your story. No, no. There was a group of three or four of us who, you know, through studying

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Scripture and looking at Scripture, we're seeing things a little different than what we were being told.

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And so we kind of banded together and kept a close group.

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And, you know, we were we were given sideways glances from time to time.

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But, yeah. So. So, yeah.

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And that in that context, graduating there with with the idea of reform theology, it was really making a move then into into reform church.

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And I've been at some OPC churches as well as currently in the PCA, but running across Jack and Paul Miller's sonship and really getting a good picture of the gospel there and not having the works attached to it, that that sometimes happens with that, the view that that was there present in the

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A .G. Yes, I have

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I still have many friends in the charismatic and Pentecostal movement, but of course, and the assemblies of God, there is a wide spectrum starting at, if you want to say, very theologically sound, not given to extremes and so on, all the way to the lunatic

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French. There are there's almost everything in the assemblies of God. And but I can recall in my journey before I was saved, visiting churches, trying to find truth.

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And unfortunately, many of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches that I visited along the way, people were going up for salvation every single week, not only to get healed physically, but to get saved.

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And it was the same people going up for salvation, altar calls.

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And many of them were on a works righteousness treadmill, it seemed, terrified of losing their salvation over almost anything.

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But anyway, again, I've interrupted you again. Yeah, yeah, no, no, very, very true.

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It's funny because there's a lot of talk about not having the liturgy and in a lot of Pentecostal churches and all.

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But I could I could almost look at my watch and know that, you know, sister so and so is going to speak in tongues here.

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And so there very much was a liturgy just a different kind.

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Right. In fact, I have a friend who was at one time a charismatic pastor.

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He became eventually a cessationist and a Calvinist.

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But while he was a charismatic pastor, they had a thing called carpet time.

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And that meant this is the time when people are going to fall over after they've been slain in the spirit and they would have to be prepared with blankets or something, especially when ladies would fall over just to make sure everything was decent and proper.

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And so they knew that, you know, there was carpet time that was coming up. But anyway.

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And so when you discovered the Reformed faith, and I think what you were describing when you were in the

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Assemblies of God college was that students through independent study were coming to these teachings and you began to huddle around each other because you were a minority.

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Am I getting that right? Yes. Yes. Exactly. Any professors have that theological understanding?

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I would say that one of my professors who was actually one of my Greek professors, although I don't know that he fully came to a

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Reformed understanding, he certainly struggled with some of the issues within the

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AG and ultimately left the AG. One of the big things was the feeling sometimes that people would be second -class

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Christians, if you will, if they didn't exhibit or experience some of the gifts.

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Right. Yep. Oh, I can fully remember seeing a friend of mine up on the platform of the church.

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I don't call it an altar because as an evangelical Christian, there are no altars.

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But the deacons were circled around this person praying over him to get the gift of tongues, and they actually began yelling at the top of their voices the command, speak in tongues, speak in tongues over and over again.

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Quite an unnerving experience. Now, again, this is not something that goes on in all

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Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. There is a diversity there, just like there's a diversity amongst

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Reformed congregations and individuals on different things.

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So after graduating, these views that you began to develop with the circle of friends, how did you come to further increase your depth of knowledge in them, and where did you explore in regard to literature and other things, perhaps sermons?

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I guess back then it would have been audio cassette and video tapes,

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VHS. You're dating me. Well, you're,

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I think, from what you said, younger than me. Yes, I know, I know. But go ahead, if you could tell us how you became more in -depth in your understanding and appreciation for and love for the doctrines of sovereign grace.

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Yeah, well, so with the AG College, the intent was to graduate and go into pastoral ministry.

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It was while we were attending an Assembly of God church that a pastor there said to me, you know, you should really think about going into the ministry.

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And that kind of took me aback a little bit because we were really involved in ministry but had never thought about that.

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My wife and I prayed about it and really sensed that there was a calling.

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And so that was my intent as I was going through Bible college. But when

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I graduated, I thought, you know, I really need to go to seminary. If I'm going to, you know, with this different theological view and I want to go into the pastorate,

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I just, you know, I need to study some more. So I ended up at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia.

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And that's where my MDiv is from. So, yeah, and, of course, attended a lot of PCRTs when

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Jim Boyce was still around and had those attend for us. We were probably at some of the same ones.

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Were you at the one? And there might have been more than one. But there was one I attended. This was,

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I believe, in the late 80s when I was a new Christian.

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But there was John Gerstner there. R .C. Sproul was at the same one.

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And there were Eric Alexander, a

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Scottish preacher. Is that ringing a bell for you at all? Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, when you talk about Gerstner and such,

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I remember going out to Ligonier and attending a reform conference that they had there when

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Gerstner was still alive. Yeah. By the way, folks, forgive me if you hear me sometimes muffling a cough.

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I am on the tail end of what I believe to be COVID because I had a meeting the day after my birthday, which was my birthday was

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February 14th. And I had actually I had the meeting that day on my birthday with a with a brother who had

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COVID. And the next day I've developed the same symptoms as he did.

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So I'm assuming that I've been battling COVID ever since. But excuse me for that.

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So I don't know if you have anything in between you'd like to highlight. But tell us about how you went from going to Westminster Seminary to discovering and becoming involved with Christian businessmen's connection.

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And perhaps even specifically of Central PA. Yeah, that that's certainly been a

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God led journey for sure. As every step of our life is.

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But I graduated Westminster, came into the

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PCA Presbyterian Church in America, was on the staff for a while at Proclamation Press in Bryn Mawr.

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Oh, yeah. I've been there where they're holding the the PCRT now. And at the time,

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Pete Loback was the pastor. Pete is the president. I've interviewed Pete. Yeah. Yeah.

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So so I worked with Pete for a number of years. And then in looking for a pastorate, kind of stepping out on my own.

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We were obviously down in the Valley Forge areas where I grew up. That's where I was born and raised. But a church in southern

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New York County was looking for a pastor, kind of in a bivocational sense.

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I'm an electrician by by trade and a pastor by vocation. So in 2002, we came up to York County and I've pastored two churches here in York and been the interim for for a church here in New York while they were doing a pastoral search.

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And when I was in the one church, the last church I served was here in the city of York.

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And. At that time, this was about 2016, the city of York had had gone through the previous year real issue with some gun violence.

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And they brought something into the city called group violence intervention. And they were looking for community involvement, churches, pastors and such to be part of it, because that that whole scenario looks to kind of do an intervention type of thing.

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Go to individuals talk that are involved in this kind of stuff, talk to them, try and offer them some some help and services, ways to make changes in their lives.

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And so our church. Became involved in that,

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I became involved in in that and got to know that strategy pretty well.

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And. The church I was pastoring was a small church in the city.

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The police chief at the time had asked me to to. Put in for the project manager position because the one that they had when they started it, he had come out of retirement to do it and was had gotten it started up and was now stepping away.

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So I talked to the elders of the church and said, this might be a good relief for the church in a sense, help financially because I could do this.

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We were already involved in this part of the city. And so I ended up it ended up becoming actually a full time job.

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I became the group violence intervention project manager for the city of York, which took a pretty good toll emotionally in the three and a half years that I did it.

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Because we're talking with a lot of young people who were involved in in. In gun violence, and I used to describe my job as I talk to people who shoot people and.

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It originally started out, you were dealing with people 21 to 25 and they kind of age out at 25.

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They kind of start to make some changes in life. But we had 50 percent of our violence kids 13 to 17.

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Wow. Yeah. And so it got pretty difficult. You know, you're talking with them, trying to help them make changes.

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And the next time you're talking with them, maybe it's in the hospital and they're paralyzed from the waist down because they've been shot.

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You're talking to their parents because they're they've been killed. You know, those types of things start to really weigh on you.

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And I realized I needed to to step away from that.

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It was a very unique ministry. Gave me a great opportunity. We were able to really make some good transition between me and the next person who's doing a tremendous job.

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They're kind of born and raised here in the city. So there's a whole lot better cooperation for them to within this whole process.

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But when I began the search for something else, as usual,

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I kind of said, Lord, I will do all of the looking, the searching, the applying. But, you know, you really have to bring the position in front of me and give me confirmation.

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And so I had been involved here in York in the city with a with a group that meets at the

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Y. That was a CBMC team and have been meeting for probably four or five years with them.

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And the position for area director had come up and. And. It had come up and somebody was applying for it, but for whatever reason, that didn't work out and it come up again.

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And I said, well, you know, all right, I'll I'll look into this. And then

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I got to talking with them, with the with the folks at the national office and heard about in more depth than I knew from just being a part of a weekly team, the heart of CBMC.

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And. And it the Lord just showed that it was a it was a perfect fit.

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The joy in my heart with it, the the the difference in how

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I I see the outcomes of what we're doing in CBMC, the idea that it's focused on touching people's lives and making transformations, helping men especially to to be to become the man more like the man that God designed them to be.

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You know, that's that's what really drew me to CBMC. And in our discussions, it was a good fit.

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Great. And we'll have you continue that thread when we return from our first commercial break.

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If you have a question of your own, please submit it to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

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As always, give us your first name. At least city and state and country of residence. We'll be right back momentarily with Jim Tyson, the area director of CBMC Central Pennsylvania.

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We're now back with Jim Tyson, the Area Director of Christian Businessmen's Connection in South Central Pennsylvania.

39:35

And if you have a question for Jim, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

39:41

Give us a first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Jim, if you could tell us now more details about this ministry,

39:49

CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Connection, perhaps give us its history and what are the main principles that keep this ministry going and its mission and so forth?

40:04

Yeah, well, Christian Businessmen's Connection, CBMC, has been around for quite a while, 90 plus years.

40:14

It began in 1930 and it was actually then called

40:20

Christian Businessmen's Committee. Part of the idea of that is that every man involved in CBMC would have a part to play.

40:30

They would be active in what CBMC was doing.

40:36

And it was just a small group of Christian businessmen who kind of coordinated a series of pre -Easter rallies.

40:46

And obviously right around the time of the Great Depression. And these guys, these men saw a need for the gospel to go out, for people's lives to be touched, especially in the midst of a lot of the hopelessness that they saw around them.

41:09

And they knew from their own lives and their own experience with Jesus exactly what it means to have your life changed and given over, submitted to him, that even in the midst of difficult times, there is still a peace and a joy that can be part of that.

41:35

So they started in Chicago in 1930, packed an 800 seat auditorium for six different sessions that they did.

41:46

And from there, there were a number of other of these committees that sprang up all over the country.

41:55

And they decided, you know, we need to really kind of come together and operate in a more organized fashion.

42:06

So CBMC, if you will, was born out of that. And then in the 1970s, they moved their whole support center and such to Tennessee, to Chattanooga.

42:25

And it was in the 70s that our signature tool, if you will, came into being, something called

42:36

Operation Timothy. It's our discipleship tool. So CBMC is about and has always really been about a twofold purpose, evangelism and discipleship, focused on men in the marketplace.

42:51

And the reason for that is, especially as the gentleman who founded

42:57

CBMC saw, not every man goes to church.

43:03

And it wasn't always easy to get a man to set foot in church. But everybody or pretty much everybody had a job and they were engaged in the workplace and the marketplace.

43:17

And they recognized the fact that that was a mission field.

43:23

And oftentimes we think of evangelism and missions and we think mission field, oh, that's for the missionary, the professional guy.

43:35

And don't always see that the Lord has placed us, each of us, in a mission field of our own.

43:44

The people we know, the contacts we make, the place that we work where we spend eight plus hours a day.

43:52

Is the mission field that the Lord has given us. We don't have to be a pastor. We don't have to be a missionary somewhere.

43:58

We can be a corporate executive and that business is our mission field.

44:04

We can be a guy who runs a lathe and a shop and that workplace is a mission field that's been given to us.

44:12

And so recognizing that and recognizing the need for discipleship and really what

44:22

Christ calls us to, to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

44:30

And so in the 70s, Operation Timothy was born, if you will.

44:36

And it remains a signature tool, probably one of the best.

44:43

And maybe I'm a little biased, but one of the best discipleship tools available for taking someone from virtually really not knowing anything through to being a disciple maker themselves.

44:59

Someone who can reach out and touch lives with the gospel. So that's been 50 years now that Operation Timothy has been around and an integral piece of what the

45:15

CBMC ministry is about. I always like to say that CBMC is not a church and we don't want to be a church and we're not a

45:24

Bible study. We don't want to be a Bible study. CBMC, even though we meet weekly for prayer and for study, even those teams that meet, the focus is to encourage each other and hold each other accountable for evangelism and discipleship.

45:46

To have a purpose, a mission, to be intentional about living out our faith in the workplace.

45:54

And not just there, obviously, in the home and such, but being very intentional about living out our faith in the workplace.

46:06

And you mentioned earlier that you happen to be personally theologically reformed, but this is a much broader group theologically, is it not?

46:18

Yeah, it is. That's one of the unique and interesting things about it.

46:25

We can be sitting around the table and we have men from very different theological perspectives.

46:33

But the beauty of it, I guess, is the unity that comes because we're not there to talk about necessarily our doctrinal differences.

46:42

We're there to talk about the gospel of Jesus. And no matter what perspective, you know, the old straw man,

46:54

I guess, if you will, against reformed theology is, well, you know, why do you evangelize if God's sovereign and he's the one who chooses?

47:03

But number one, he's commanded it. Number two, he's chosen to use us in the process.

47:09

That's what he does. And so it's no less important for those who are of a reformed faith than anybody else.

47:23

And really, when we think of it, what a wonderful thing that God has chosen to do with people who are fallen and sinful.

47:31

And what a great way to help keep us from forgetting the fact that, you know, we were there, too.

47:40

And it's only God's grace that puts us where we are, you know, in a path with him.

47:46

By the way, I don't know if you're familiar with this book, but I, as often as I remember to, like to plug this book because what

47:55

CBMC is doing somewhat reminded me of the

48:01

New York revival of 1858. And I know that CBMC is not what you, as you just said moments ago, it's not meant to be exclusively a weekly prayer meeting or something like that.

48:19

But during the midst of a financial crisis that ruined the lives of one million people in New York City, a prayer meeting began.

48:34

And it started out with just a very tiny handful of people. But then it grew into multiple prayer meetings being conducted in the middle of the day all over New York City.

48:47

The word about this started to spread like fire. And the Lord used this to bring about great revival.

48:55

And there is a book you could get published by Banner of Truth called The Power of Prayer, The New York Revival of 1858 by Samuel Prime.

49:05

And you could get that from our sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

49:12

And just ask for The Power of Prayer by Samuel Prime, a

49:17

Banner of Truth publication. I just thought I'd throw that out there because who knows how God may use

49:24

CBMC in its own way, a unique way that CBMC functions to bring about a possible revival all over the

49:34

United States and other parts of the world. And tell us, if you could, where are the chapters of CBMC?

49:40

Well, certainly we're here in the US. We're in 350 plus cities in the

49:49

US. We are international. Our material is used in 143 different countries.

49:58

Yeah. And they're actually two different. They're joined but different.

50:05

They're CBMC, which we are a part of, which is the national in Chattanooga.

50:12

But then there's CBMC International, which deals with all the CBMC chapters all over the world.

50:20

In fact, just this past year, they had their world conference in Seoul, South Korea. And Seoul is really, or Korea in general, is really an area that is certainly gospel oriented and focused.

50:39

So we have that presence everywhere. And the idea, the mission of CBMC just resonates because it's the idea you were talking about, prayer,

50:56

Chris. And in our meetings, in the weekly meetings, well, actually, in all of our meetings, part of the focus of what we do is not just spend time praying for each other.

51:06

But we talk about something called a top 10 list or a 10 most wanted list.

51:13

The people that you are praying for, whose lives would be touched by Christ and the gospel.

51:21

And that's an intentional time of prayer, praying for opportunity to talk to them yourself, praying for other people to come into those people's lives.

51:33

Very focused on exactly what you were talking about, praying that the gospel would go out and touch people's lives and that they would respond in a positive way to the gospel.

51:51

So, yeah, that is very much a focus of what we're doing. And then our studies, we do a

51:56

Bible study at each of those weekly meetings and we do a Bible study at some of the other types of meetings that we have.

52:04

But we try and make it very much application oriented. How do we go out and live these biblical principles?

52:11

How do we take them into the workplace? Amen. And we have to go to our midway break right now. Folks, please remember, be patient with us during the midway break because it's a little longer than the other breaks.

52:23

Because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show.

52:32

Because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to where Grace Life Radio is located, which is

52:42

Lake City, Florida. And they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things, which they air in the middle of our show, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

52:54

So please use this time wisely. Send in questions to Jim Tyson about Christian businessmen's connection or anything about being a professional or businessman and how to live out your faith in those arenas.

53:08

If you have a question, send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give his first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

53:14

But also please try to write down as much of the contact information for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

53:24

Keeping in mind, they are what keeps this program on the air, other than the kindness of God, of course, first and foremost.

53:33

But the finances from our advertisers keep us in existence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

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01:09:15

Before I return to my discussion with Jim Tyson, Area Director of the

01:09:21

Christian Businessmen's Connection in South Central Pennsylvania, we just have some important announcements to make.

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01:09:36

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And that could be your too, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put

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I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Jim Tyson, the

01:12:21

Area Director of Christian Businessmen's Connection in South Central PA.

01:12:28

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And Jim, by the way, we providentially have an email that came in during the show from Mark Copeland who is trying to get a headcount of the folks that are going to be attending this morning's

01:12:45

CBMC meeting that's being held Tuesday at 6 a .m. at the

01:12:51

Hamilton Restaurant on West High Street here in Carlisle, a different meeting than I typically attend which is the

01:12:56

Wednesday meeting at Fay's Country Kitchen. But I just thought I'd throw that out there. And we also have an email from Terrence in Cockeysville, Pennsylvania.

01:13:10

New to Pennsylvania, well, since 2014 anyway. And haven't heard that one yet.

01:13:15

That's city. But Terrence says, what are the primary problems that Christian businessmen approach you with in regard to being faithful witnesses for Christ in their own workplace?

01:13:29

Yeah, I think some of the big things that people are concerned with is perhaps somewhat a question of legality.

01:13:40

Am I allowed to do this? Or is this going to cause a problem in my workplace if I do this?

01:13:51

Certainly we want to be winsome in our approach. But unless your employer specifically says and has a policy that you cannot talk about something, then you are absolutely free to talk about your faith.

01:14:07

A lot of people mistakenly believe they can't do that. One of the things that CBMC hosts and will be doing it again this

01:14:16

May is something called a T Factor conference, which is actually an organization that was founded by the

01:14:29

I guess he's the president of Coca -Cola Consolidated, which is the largest Coca -Cola bottling company in the country.

01:14:37

And they part of what T Factor's purpose is, is to help businesses and people within business to know what they are legally allowed to do.

01:14:49

And there is nothing that says it is illegal for you or not right for you to be able to talk about your faith in your workplace.

01:15:00

Obviously, you don't want to take away from your work and what you're doing. You don't want to try and interrupt someone in the middle of their work.

01:15:09

But certainly you can openly say who you are. If somebody is dealing with something, you can talk about your faith and how your faith works in your life and the issues that that you face in your life.

01:15:23

And businesses run in, especially if they're an executive or a business owner.

01:15:31

They they worry about some of that legality, legality issues. But you can be a

01:15:40

Christian and own a business and put scripture verses on your walls and you can offer

01:15:49

Bible studies. You can't make a mandatory, but you can offer those things that, you know, appropriate times during during the workday, before the workday, whatever.

01:15:58

You can make those available. You can do those kinds of things in your workplace so it can truly be a mission field.

01:16:08

The biggest thing is that people deal with fear, obviously, of talking to people about faith.

01:16:18

Oftentimes. And I'll I'll I'll step lightly here because I know what it's like to be in that place.

01:16:26

Oftentimes we say, oh, you know, I don't know enough. That's why I'm afraid or I'm afraid I won't have an answer.

01:16:32

But what I've realized in my life that oftentimes that fear is just that I'm worried about what somebody else is going to think of me.

01:16:40

So I'm more worried about myself instead of their hearing the gospel.

01:16:47

And so we try and do things that help equip people and really own their faith through our discipleship process.

01:16:58

You know, walking beside men, helping them to to really understand exactly the depth of what the gospel, what

01:17:09

Christ has done for us and that we don't walk in our own power. We walk in his. Yes, you were obviously primarily there speaking about people who are in ownership or high management of businesses.

01:17:26

But but even I'm assuming a an employee has complete legal freedom to invite colleagues to a

01:17:34

Bible study as long as there is no undue pressure on them, especially if it's involving subordinates in the business.

01:17:44

And there is a completely different legal aspect with nonprofits, is it not?

01:17:52

I'll give you an example. I overcame, thanks be to God, an addiction to alcohol abuse over a decade ago by enrolling myself at this wonderful ministry called

01:18:08

Hebron Colony. It's in Boone, North Carolina, a Christian organization.

01:18:15

In fact, it is the longest running addictive recovery place in the

01:18:23

United States for men. It's the it's the longest running and oldest organization of that kind in the

01:18:31

United States. But even though it is a Christian ministry and a nonprofit ministry, they welcomed people into their program, no matter what religion they were a part of.

01:18:48

They could be an atheist or a Muslim, but they were required to come to every one of the

01:18:54

Christian meetings to both hear an evangelist and the teaching and instruction of the

01:19:02

Bible. So I'm assuming that's the kind of thing that's a huge difference when you have a different when you have a business and a nonprofit, right?

01:19:12

Yeah, correct. There are even some of the Christian shelters, shelters for individuals experiencing homelessness who will have a requirement to attend a service that's done there or some other type of study program that's done there if people want to to be in the shelter.

01:19:41

So, yeah. By the way, I apologize to Terrence. He is informing me that I misspoke.

01:19:48

Cockeysville is not in Pennsylvania, but in Maryland. Sorry that I misread your address,

01:19:54

Terrence. And let's see, we have Cornelia who is in West Hempstead, Long Island, New York.

01:20:05

And Cornelia asks, in what specific ways do you equip those in ownership and management levels in businesses to live out their duties and responsibilities and roles in those businesses as ambassadors for Christ?

01:20:25

And my second question is, is CB MS only for CBMC actually?

01:20:32

Only for men or are women allowed to participate? Yeah, so taking the first part of that question,

01:20:42

I had mentioned earlier that we have some other types of teams that meet.

01:20:48

And specifically for business owners or for C -level executives,

01:20:54

C -level executives would be your CEO, your COO, your CFO in a

01:21:01

C -level corporation. We have things called trusted advisor forums, which are peer -to -peer advisory groups.

01:21:12

And we have trained facilitators in them and we usually, they're a little different than our weekly groups in that they are a closed group.

01:21:22

We want eight to 12 in that group and then when it's closed, they're non -competing businesses.

01:21:29

They have nondisclosure agreements and all of that simply because what that advisory group does is it allows those individuals in that group to take an issue that they're dealing with in their company.

01:21:46

And they meet once a month, four hours, and that individual who's quote -unquote up that month, will ahead of time share, and there's a process to do that, share what the issue is that they're looking at with the fellow members of that team.

01:22:06

And then when they come together, they'll have kind of a

01:22:11

Christian board of advisors around them to talk about the issue that they're facing.

01:22:18

And this way it's not their own board of directors, it's not a competitor in their field, but it's the wisdom from a

01:22:29

Christ -centered perspective about a problem or issue that they're facing. And some of the teams, because of the nature of knowing that there's the confidentiality and the relationships that are built, it may be a personal issue too that's shared there.

01:22:48

But it affords the opportunity for the business issue. You can share financials or not, but again there's a trained facilitator involved in that.

01:23:00

So that's where it gets a little deeper. Those meetings still have a prayer component to them.

01:23:07

They still have a Bible study to them. What we try and do is make sure that that study is related to the issue that the individual is bringing up that month.

01:23:21

So that we're really taking that whole period and focusing in on that and the biblical principles and ideas that relate to that and doing that type of study.

01:23:35

So that's what we have as a more in -depth and we still want to make sure that that meeting focuses on helping that business owner or executive see how their faith can be lived out within their workplace, partly through dealing with the issues that they're dealing with, how they take that faith -based perspective on the problem back into the workplace and how an owner can really bring the gospel to bear and create a culture within their company without mandating something on people, but still create a culture that is very

01:24:19

Christ -honoring and Christ -centered in their business. So that's the little more detail -oriented aspect of CBMC.

01:24:33

We have a kind of comparative group called

01:24:39

Young Professionals, which is for young professionals from 21 to 40 who are kind of just in the beginnings or earlier stages of their career.

01:24:51

We'll try to bring in some of the older executives, the C -level executives and such, to speak with them, but then they can also take an issue amongst themselves and deal with that, but they're getting some wisdom on faith and business from some of the older executives, too, as part of that process.

01:25:12

And that's, again, a monthly meeting kept closed with a smaller group for about three hours on a given day whenever they choose to meet.

01:25:24

And then a lot of those executives will still be part of our weekly C -3 team because that's still keeping you connected to people, that's still functioning in a similar type of fashion.

01:25:37

It just doesn't get into some of the deeper issues that maybe an executive or a business owner might face.

01:25:45

Its focus is a little different than those peer advisory groups. Great.

01:25:50

And we have Lucas in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who asks, in your experience when you have discussions and meetings and studies with those who are in business leadership, what is the greatest area of failure?

01:26:08

In fact, I'm going to customize this question to include the plurality of that issue.

01:26:17

What are the most common and serious areas, plural, of failure amongst those in business ownership and leadership?

01:26:28

And that's a very good question. And let me throw out there an example of a failure that I have personally been witness to.

01:26:37

I'm going to try to keep this as innocuous, not innocuous, but I'm going to try to keep this away from mentioning specific organizations and so on.

01:26:48

But I have experienced businesses that, well, let me say a business in particular, that identifies itself as a

01:27:01

Christian corporation. And many in leadership in the highest levels of that organization believe that the best way to show the world that the leadership of this corporation is following Christ is to be as monetarily successful as they possibly could be.

01:27:32

And so what they developed in ideology and even, I guess you could say, a worldview, a format, whatever you want to call it, was that where they were basically imitating or seeking to imitate the most financially successful businesses that they were aware of, study what they do, and try to basically copy that in their own corporation.

01:28:03

But tragically, as a result, that very often meant that they were just as heartless and cutthroat when it came to running this business because their top priority was if we want the world to see what a

01:28:23

Christian business or corporation or organization can accomplish, we have to be really first and foremost concerned with how much money we're making.

01:28:32

That's basically what it was. So that's one area that I thought I'd throw out there to further flavor the question that Lucas and Pine Bluff Arkansas gave.

01:28:49

Right. Yeah, and that certainly is a big area of finance for all kinds of reasons from how it drives us to conduct our business to even the temptations that come with it to try and manipulate for those financial reasons.

01:29:13

I think another area too is the ability to really deal well with personnel because of the focus on the business aspect and the business becomes, in a sense, an idol.

01:29:30

Like you were saying with the money, the people that are involved in the business become more of a commodity just simply to have the business run rather than really an integral and vital part of the business.

01:29:48

And one of the things that we at CBMC offer is something called leadership coach training, which we've debated how well that describes what we're actually talking about in doing leadership coach training, but the whole idea is helping people to become active listeners and good question askers.

01:30:12

How do I ask powerful questions? For lots of reasons. One, to help someone kind of work through and draw out of themselves what's probably already in there for answers to their questions, but also so that that we become more interested in people, more curious about people.

01:30:35

And that's that's something that I think a lot of executives, you know, the big term now,

01:30:40

I guess, is emotional intelligence. We put these terms to things, but it's really just simply being a person who listens to and cares about other people.

01:30:51

And I think that's an area where a lot of executives can struggle because multitude of reasons, hectic pace, all the different decisions that they have to make, the way they have to to look at it oftentimes from that business, you know, what's best for the business viewpoint.

01:31:13

It can it can easily slip away the fact that there is a human component to the business.

01:31:23

And then again, with yours, there's probably a pretty well known example of someone who came in and became part of CBMC who had some issues within business.

01:31:39

He now actually works for T Factor. His name is Mark Whitaker. There's a whole

01:31:46

Netflix series about Mark. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

01:31:51

There's a Netflix show about him. And he became a whistleblower, an informant with the

01:31:59

FBI. And his story is out there. There's a film about it.

01:32:05

Do you remember the title of it? I'm looking now to see if I can find out exactly what that was.

01:32:13

I will get it for you, though. You can look during our next commercial break. Yeah.

01:32:20

And so the fact is that if you can think of something that you struggle with in your everyday life, the sins that beset us, it's going to be there in your business life, too, in some way, shape, or form.

01:32:42

You know, we hear a lot about things like sexual harassment and such, and we, you know, anything that is a temptation to man is the temptation to business and in ways gets magnified because of obviously how a business has to be conducted.

01:33:05

Yes. And by the way, I did not intend by my question to insinuate that a

01:33:12

Christian business must not conduct discipline, just like a church would, not that they're the same thing, behavior unbecoming of a faithful employee should be dealt with, even if it results in the termination of people like that.

01:33:35

I'm not trying to say that those things shouldn't be done, but at the same time, I think that when you have a business that identifies as Christian that is going to the extreme of being cutthroat and heartless, they have to really reevaluate what they're doing if they're going to be a good

01:33:57

Christian testimony. The organization that I was mentioning had developed a reputation across the

01:34:06

United States because it was a national organization. They developed a reputation even amongst secular industries and businesses of being heartless and cruel.

01:34:22

And that's not a good testimony for Christ. You have to,

01:34:27

I would imagine, develop a way to be patient and corrective and showing an interest in making those employees better without the quick action of harsh discipline and termination.

01:34:46

Am I making sense there? Yeah, absolutely. And it is part of the process.

01:34:52

That's part of the idea of coaching. I know a lot of businesses are doing this now. They'll take someone who is struggling and before they just jump into a harsh disciplinary action, they'll try and coach them and maybe a skill that seems to be lacking in their position or sometimes you find that we're just in the wrong place, right?

01:35:22

What was it, the Peter principle? We're promoted until we reach the level of incompetence and that's where we stay for the rest of our lives.

01:35:34

Another recent book, six working types of genius,

01:35:40

I believe it is, starts talking a little bit more about what are the things that not only are we good at but that are the things that really motivate us in our work and how can we and how can the employer and such best utilize those skills because then it has the best outcome and some of that is coaching.

01:36:08

Maybe somebody is just in the wrong place in their business, you know? Right. They may be in the right business but in the wrong role.

01:36:18

Right. And by the way, I also wanted to throw out there, I wasn't trying to insinuate either that financial success should not be a serious concern of any business organization and so on.

01:36:30

That obviously would not be a loving act to be oblivious to that because people have families to provide for.

01:36:41

Not only the people that are owning and running the business but also every employee.

01:36:48

Their own livelihood is going to depend upon the success financially of the business.

01:36:54

So I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't, you know, giving a false complaint about some of the serious, egregious errors of business owners and management and CEOs and so on.

01:37:11

We have Leon in Cranberry Isles, Maine and Leon asks,

01:37:18

I would love to hear some testimonies that you could share of how

01:37:26

CBMC has improved the lives and business conduct of people in the business world.

01:37:38

Yeah, I can give you one that's here fairly local just because I haven't asked their permission.

01:37:47

I won't use their names but I can certainly give you the circumstance that CBMC in one of our groups here in central

01:37:54

PA, one of our team guys worked out at a gym regularly, met a young man there, military background, and just developed a relationship and talking with them.

01:38:12

This young man has a business and eventually led that man through Operation Timothy out to He actually presented the gospel to him first.

01:38:26

And it was totally new to him. It was not part of his growing up, his life.

01:38:34

And so it was kind of a new experience, but he was, his heart was captured by the

01:38:45

Lord and they began doing Operation Timothy. And now he runs a foundation as well as his business, he's actively involved, he's on fire, he readily shares the gospel wherever, whenever, because he really sees that, you know, what

01:39:07

Christ has done for him and understands scripture's call on us to be disciple makers.

01:39:16

It's not just for certain people, that's a call placed on all of us. And so he is really on fire, he's actually part of our area leadership team now,

01:39:30

I asked him to be part of that, so that's just a very recent story and that can be repeated.

01:39:38

One of our guys who was an area director had the same position that I now have in the

01:39:44

Maryland area, businessman, knew a guy who was part of CBMC, his desire was to get in front of this guy to offer him, try and sell him product that he had, and this gentleman invited him to an outreach event that CBMC has, a lot of times we'll have breakfasts or luncheons or things like that, invited him to I believe it was a luncheon, and he came just simply because he knew he'd have an opportunity to be with this guy and talk to him.

01:40:21

Heard the message and the testimony of the speaker that day, and I don't know that he even remembers who the speaker was, but the gospel was presented and the

01:40:34

Lord grabbed hold of him there and turned his life around and changed him, and he again became a man who saw the need to bring the gospel and to live that out in his life and in the workplace.

01:40:50

Praise God, and we're going to be right back after this final break, and if you have more questions for Jim Tyson of Christian Businessmen's Connection in South Central Pennsylvania, send it on in to chrisarenzen at gmail .com.

01:41:06

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

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and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. We're now back with Jim Tyson, and he is the area director of the

01:52:58

Christian Businessmen's Connection in central Pennsylvania, and we have

01:53:04

Lionel in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, who asks, forgive me if I missed it, but earlier on in the program, you had a woman ask if CBMC is open to women for membership, and I can't remember if you ever answered that.

01:53:22

Yes. In fact, I wrote a note to myself to come back to that because I did remember that and didn't include that as part of my answer.

01:53:33

So CBMC, as the name says, is Christian Businessmen's Connection.

01:53:40

It specifically was started and focused on men in business, and what

01:53:49

I usually say is, you know, because of our mission, what we're trying to do, we're trying to help men become better followers of Jesus, better husbands, better fathers, and I think most women can agree that we, as men, desperately need that, and so we do it as a specific ministry so that men can walk alongside men and share and hold each other accountable in that process, but one of the things that we see increasingly is, especially when we have larger events, for instance, in our

01:54:37

York area, they do every year an annual First Capital Prayer Breakfast that's hosted by the

01:54:43

CBMC teams here, and it's open to anyone. Bring in a speaker.

01:54:49

There's always a gospel message. Present it, and we've had an increasing number of women ask about the types of things that we have here in CBMC that we do, and our response is one, you know, we don't want to say, oh, not too bad, no.

01:55:10

Our materials at CBMC, our electronic versions of them, like Operation Timothy and such, are all available online free.

01:55:18

You do have to register, but that's free, and I'm willing, and I know my counterparts are willing, to come alongside and help women if they want to start something like our

01:55:33

C3 teams or whatever, to walk them through that material and that process and help them to do that.

01:55:41

I know there are a few areas of the country where there are

01:55:46

CBWC teams. It's not an organization as such like CBMC is, but I can envision that that would happen, and I certainly have no problem in working with people, with women to help to create that kind of scenario.

01:56:10

Great. Well, thanks, Lionel, and now I want you, brother, to conclude with a summary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding Christian Businessmen's Connection and also provide any contact information that you care to share, in addition to maybe giving us any announcements about special events you're having.

01:56:33

Yeah, absolutely. So CBMC, like I said, our focus is evangelism and discipleship, and that rings to my heart.

01:56:47

When I was pastoring, I was very missional -focused. We desperately need the gospel.

01:56:54

We who are believers, followers of Christ, need it every day in our own lives, but we certainly can see, and it's evident that we live in a fallen world that needs the gospel, and the

01:57:09

Lord has called us to do that, and CBMC is very strategically positioned to carry out that ministry in the workplace, in the marketplace.

01:57:22

Not everybody's going to come in to the church. The church does a fantastic job of giving us a place to worship, of giving us a place to learn, of doing outreach, but because of its physical location, if you will, in a church building, in a context, it's not ideally situated like CBMC is to do the day -to -day ministry within the marketplace, and that's where we are focused.

01:58:00

That's where we have been focused for 90 -plus years, and that's just our heart, and it's not about, one of the beautiful things about CBMC, in my mind, is it's not about growing the tribe of CBMC.

01:58:20

It's about growing the kingdom of Christ. Prayer is a major part of what we do.

01:58:27

You know, it's not looking at increasing the CBMC teams that we have.

01:58:33

It's looking at getting the gospel proclaimed and people discipled.

01:58:40

That is the heart. Amen. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about CBMC, the

01:58:47

Central Pennsylvania chapter can be found at centralpa .cbmc

01:58:53

.com, centralpa .cbmc .com, and there is also an international website, cbmcint .com,

01:59:09

cbmcint .com. I want to also remind our listeners or inform our listeners something that Jim said reminded me of a wonderful book written by my friend

01:59:21

Peter Jeffrey, who is now in heaven. He was a Reformed Baptist pastor in Port Talbot, Wales for many years.

01:59:30

He has written a book called Believers Need the Gospel, Reaffirming the Gospel Message for Today's Christians, and you can get that from cvbbs .com,

01:59:41

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com. Thanks, Jim, for doing such an extraordinary job today.

01:59:49

I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater