It is one of the tragedies of the david hoffmeister experience that many Christians have been conditioned to think that starting and owning their own Christian based business will detract them from service and devotion to God.
Somehow, we have allowed the world and Satan to convince us that doing well in business, making money, and dominating the market place with our Christian business opportunity is somehow against good Christian living.
As a matter of fact, until fairly recently, Christians are generally perceived by the world as poor people who are just managing to survive here on earth while waiting for mansions in heaven. The astounding thing about this warped label on Christians is that some Christians also buy into this unfortunate perception by seeing themselves that way.
Somehow, we have allowed ourselves to be backed into a situation where emphasis on starting and owning a thriving and prosperous Christian based business casts doubts on our right standing and service to God. Satan and his demons have fed us lies about money and the purpose of money-making businesses. They have actually succeeded to a large extent in stealing the Word of God from our hearts in the areas of money and business ownership.
When I first became a Pastor, I owned several businesses. Some of the businesses were having problems at the time and I convinced myself to close them all down (6 were still operational when I became a Pastor), rather than finding ways to turn them around. In my new found zeal for God, I somehow allowed myself to be convinced that having so many businesses as a Pastor may allow people to cast doubts on my sincerity in serving God.
In retrospect, I think that was one of the dumbest moves I ever made. Now I know I could have used the resources that the rejuvenated companies could have generated to support the work of the Kingdom. My misguided perspective about Christians and Christian based Business made it easy for me to choose the easy way out of the problem my businesses were facing.
This is the great danger of the Kingdom Citizen faced by not being aware of what God says about him and his business ideas. Our ignorance often allows us to take the easy way out and then blame our poverty on devotion and service to God, rather than facing the realities, and use the wisdom of God revealed in the Bible to overcome our problems.
This wrong perspective about the Kingdom Citizen and the pursuit of a Christian business opportunity is not helped, in many cases, by our Pastors and spiritual teachers.
How often have we seen somebody with great ideas for enterprise discouraged by his pastor who wanted him to serve in Ministry, rather than using the Holy Spirit in him to go out and dominate the business environment and bring glory to God? As soon as somebody gets saved and gets fired up for God we try to divert them to a service in ministry.
It is not uncommon for Pastors to pursue people with great dedication and anointing in their lives and try to ‘drag’ them into formal traditional ministry works like Pastoring, Teaching, and Evangelizing. We anoint and lay hands on people all the time in order to set them apart to preach, teach and evangelize the Word of God in the body of Christ.
However as unbelievers continue to dictate the financial well being of many Christians, the question we must begin to ask is this: When are churches going to start laying hands on people to the business minded Christian with a mandate to specifically establish a Christian based business in his or her respective area of business anointing and dominate that industry for the glory of God? When was the last time your church ordained somebody as a Kingdom Ambassador or Pastor to a particular business area with a specific mandate to be fruitful, multiply, replenish and rule that industry?
