John Lovoy is the CEO of Infomedia, a website service provider for businesses. Throughout his career, he has learned to trust God with his company and use it to impact employees and clients for Christ.
After graduating from Auburn University as an engineer, John worked for Texas Instruments and Samsonite before returning to Birmingham, Alabama, to buy his father’s discount bargain store. In the course of a few years, John turned the store into a successful beauty supply chain with forty-two employees.
But God had other plans and John suddenly lost the business, went $500,000 in debt, and had to take a job doing door-to-door sales for an alarm company. Through it all, God taught John to trust fully in Him, and follow God’s direction. In 1996, John bought Infomedia, a company that develops, supports, and markets websites. Since then, he has led the business through good and bad by pursuing integrity, bringing value to the customer, and serving his employees.
2:18 What is your story and background?
7:26 In the midst of your difficulty, how did you learn to depend on God daily?
10:12 What’s one of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make in business and how did your faith inform that?
16:16 What is the balance between stress and trust?
21:45 How does your faith inform the way you terminate employees?
Full transcript:
Ray: Well, hello everyone. This is Ray Hilbert, your co-host at Bottom Line Faith. For our regular listeners, you know that this is the program where we lift the hood and tinker around in the engine of Christian leadership. We have a chance on this program to travel across the country and hear from some of America’s greatest Christian business leaders, athletic and entertainment leaders, and so forth. But this is a program to help you, as a Christ-follower, apply biblical principles in your leadership, in business, in your schools, and in the marketplace in general.
So we are really, really thrilled to be here. If this is your first time, you can check out many more interviews at bottomlinefaith.org. That is our website for the program: bottomlinefaith.org. also find us on Twitter, Instagram, all the social medias under Bottom Line Faith. Also, if you’re a Christ-follower in business, and you’re looking to check out tools and resources to help you live out your faith in the marketplace, check out our ministry website at truthatwork.org. Maybe one of our Round Tables will be right for you as a Christian in business leadership. So check out the website there as well. Well, folks, I am excited about today’s program. I am in Birmingham, Alabama and in the beautiful deep south and I am interviewing John Lovoy, who is the CEO of InfoMedia. John, welcome to Bottom Line Faith.
John: Thank you, thank you.
Ray: Well, we’ve had a chance to talk for a few moments before going into recording here, and I am really excited because you truly are an example of a man whose life has been redeemed by Jesus Christ. Is that not right?
John: Amen. Yes.
Ray: Well, we’re going to learn more about the business and leadership and so forth. But tell us a little bit of your story, a little bit of your background, how it is that you came to faith in Christ? You were kind of cruising along in life and some things happened, so take 2, 3, 4 minutes and tell us a little bit of your background.
John: Well, born and raised Italian Catholic, thinking I was going to retire at the age of 40. Went and graduated from Auburn University as an engineer.
Ray: War Eagle.
John: Yeah, that’s right. Worked at Texas Instruments and Samsonite, and then my dad was selling his business here in Birmingham and decided to move back to Birmingham and buy his little discount bargain store business because he was making more money than I was. And so did that and turned it into a beauty spa business, very, very profitable. At the time in 1986, I think I was around 40, 41; things were going great. I thought anybody that didn’t know how to do that; they were just dumb if they went out of business. I mean, I was making a lot of money doing a lot of things, and all of a sudden, God had different plans for me. The Korean, beautiful, Christian people decided they wanted to get into the beauty spa business, and they opened up stores next door to every one of our stores, started cutting prices, and all of a sudden, overnight, the business – literally, we could not pay our bills. I went about $500,000 in debt and was in pretty bad shape.
And about that time, of course, I didn’t know this, but a year before, my wife had come to know the Lord. And she had been praying for me with a bunch of other ladies. I got invited to a ski trip in February of ’86. Turned out it was a Bible study. 20 years these guys had been doing this Bible study, and they take me up to the mountains and try to share Christ with me, and I tell them I was a Catholic. They were the protesters, not me. And I knew all about Jesus. But they kept telling me I was not trusting the Lord because they knew what was going on in my life. At that time, my son was not doing well and had gotten into some bad things. I was still drinking, my wife and I were arguing, my business was going to pot, and things were really bad. So February of ’86, I understood what it meant to trust the Lord. I said, “Hey, guys, just show me what I need to do.”
And so I did. I told Ray the story about getting in the back of the truck. My dad used to carry us down to the river, and we’d get in the back of the truck. We were 10-year-old kids and wanted to go get something to eat. And he carried us, and we didn’t know where we were going, but we knew he was going to take care of us. And I said, “That’s what I heard the Lord telling me: to get in the back of the truck. Quit driving.” And so I went from a Nebuchadnezzar, thinking, “Man, I did all this.” Driving a Porsche, doing great, making lots of money, to having no money. God said, “I’m going to take this all away from you.” That was a Psalm, that “It is good that I’ve been afflicted that I may learn your decrees.”
Boy. I mean, he afflicted me alright. And so for the next seven years, my wife and I, we were in debt over $500,000, and I went from running a beauty spa business with 42 employees, driving a Porsche, to the job I got was an alarm company. It turned out I had to go to Atlanta and do door-to-door sales, and so did that for a couple years. Life was tough for seven years, but as I told you, there is no doubt in my mind that God turned my life around in February of ‘86. And I said, “Lord, I’m going to let you drive, and I’m going to get in the back of the truck, and I’m not going to do anything without asking you.” And that’s where I’ve been. Psalms 143:8, which says, “Show me the way to go,” and Psalms 32:8, “I will teach and instruct you the way you should go.” That’s my life right now, and that’s what I’m doing so.
Ray: A very powerful story, but I just want to pause there and go back, before we move on because you were literally riding high; you had the cars, and the money, and a successful business, and maybe kind of thought your own stuff didn’t stink perhaps, right? You had it together, and you had pride and all those things. And yet you quoted a Psalm that said God afflict – would you say that?
John: Psalms 119:77, “It is good that I’ve been afflicted, that I may learn your decrees,” is what David said.
Ray: John, we may have a listener right now, we haven’t even gotten into your company yet, and what you know now, and all the things we’re going to talk about, but just in sharing what you did about your story, we may have a listener right now, who’s going through something really difficult in their business, really difficult in their leadership. And what I’m hearing from you is, it’s quite possible that God has brought that affliction into their life to sharpen them, to break them to a point of humility and dependence. Would you agree with that?
John: Oh, absolutely. There’s no question that I was making a lot of money and going down one road, and God turned me down another road. And I look back, I mean, my wife, we’ve been married 49 years now. And we went from, I mean, we were not in good shape at that time. God just totally turned my marriage around, turned my kids around, my son is healed now. He’s got his own business, civil engineer, one of the few that made it out of drugs and alcohol and turned his life around. So I mean, those are, I got three kids and nine grandkids and a beautiful wife. I don’t care about the money. Those are the blessings that God bestowed on me.
Ray: And I’m sure in that moment, or in that season, when things were falling apart, you probably couldn’t see all this into the future, right? So how did you in the midst of that difficulty, you were new in your faith. In fact, that’s what brought you to faith in Christ. You could have gotten angry with God; you could have turned away as so many do. How did you just learn to depend on Him daily?
John: I was scared to death; I had nothing else to do. I had people calling me every day, wanting to know if they could come pick up a check, and I didn’t have a dime. We literally had no money. We went from lots of money to no money, and I literally woke up sweating in the morning, and I could not wait to go and read Scripture and see what God was going to tell me to do that day. I wouldn’t move. I’d say, “Lord show me what to do.” Psalms 143:8. “Show me the way to go.”
What am I supposed to do today? And it was literally that song, “One day at a time, sweet Jesus.” My mentor, he always used to say; he was always happy. And he was in worse shape than I was sometimes. And he was, you know, “If the Lord comes back, I’m great! As long as the Lord comes back this afternoon, we’re all going to be fine. Now, if he waits until tomorrow, I’m not sure.” And so I adopted it. I said, “All I got to do is just get through the day.” And I took it one day at a time.
Ray: We’re going to hear more about how that all plays out in your leadership and in your company. But take just a moment and, it was about 1996, you bought the business, right? InfoMedia? Tell us a little bit about the company and what you guys do.
John: Well, we finally got out of debt; I was just looking for a job. And a friend of mine said, “Hey, InfoMedia is looking for a salesman.” And went to work for the guy that started InfoMedia. Basically, he was running the company into the ground. And so I made a proposition to him to buy the company in ’96, and the rest is history. We had 13, we took it down to 4 people and just started doing day-by-day, trusting God. We had, we were just such a small company, and we had these big clients, and we were scared to death, but it was just 4 little people, and we just trudged along. Of course, being on the internet, they didn’t know how big we were. And that’s how we started InfoMedia, just moving forward, and we’re still doing the same thing today.
Ray: And what is that core line of business?
John: We develop websites, and we support websites, and we market websites. That’s all we did. We don’t handle any computers or wiring; we just work in the virtual world.
Ray: So you’ve seen that change over the years?
John: Oh, yes. Back when we were talking to people about websites, they didn’t even know what they were. I used to tell them they were fax machines on steroids.
Ray: That’s marketing. Well, folks, we are speaking with John Lovoy, the CEO of InfoMedia. This is Ray Hilbert, host of Bottom Line Faith, and we are in Birmingham, Alabama, interviewing John around the life lessons and leadership lessons that he has developed over his long and wonderful career. John, I’d like to talk a little bit about business; I’d like to talk about leadership and talk about lessons learned. What’s one of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make in business, and what role did your faith play in that?
John: In 2011, my son came on, and he’s president of the company now. And somehow in 2011, I was trying to pull back. We tried to grow too fast and took on– matter of fact, I remember it was in 2011, we took on 11 bad clients. Not bad; they were wonderful clients. We just got into stuff that we didn’t need to be in, and we ended up having 11 big companies mad at us, threatening to sue us. We actually did get sued by one company, and I had to take those 11 clients, one by one, look them in the face and tell them if I need to give them a refund or whatever, and we ended up giving a lot of money back, and just working through those 11.
But I knew it was our fault we had gotten in; there’s some things that we shouldn’t have gotten into. And we did not do what we said we would do, so we had to refund a lot of money, and it about broke us. But God took us through it one by one. And we made it out on the other side and decided; we changed our core value. Our core value now is integrity, doing what we say we’ll do. That is our most important core value, and that’s difficult because sometimes people hear different things, or a salesman will sell something, and then the customer heard something different. So we’re very, very careful, and we tell anybody that we work with, you know, fire us at any time. If we don’t do what we say, we will refund your money and shake hands and go about it. So that’s what we do now.
Ray: And that’s not always an easy thing.
John: No, it’s very difficult.
Ray: Because we make decisions, you know, we kind of follow the breadcrumbs, we make a sale, certain things get moving inside the company to fulfill the order, and people start depending on certain things and resources. And then at some point, you can hit a wall. Realize, hey, we cannot fulfill this. But it is about doing the right thing.
John: There was one more thing that happened – I was just thinking the second bit – it was actually about that same time period, we had one of the guys that we brought into sort of run the production facility. And he basically was Mutiny on the Bounty. He took 10 of our best employees and started another company. And we just said, “Hey Lord, it’s whatever. We’ll just keep doing what we do.” And so we kept on, but it was a very, very difficult time.
Ray: So you survived both of those.
John: Yeah, it was right in the middle of it.
Ray: Wow. But you’ve kind of learned God’s favor.
John: That’s right. Hey, just whatever he wants me to do, “be joyful always, pray continually, be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” I argue with him about that all the time. I’m saying, “In this circumstance, you want me to be thankful? Are you sure?” But I go back and read it again, and it says the same thing every time.
Ray: Oh, that’s terrific. Well, you mentioned you know, integrity, always doing what we say we’re going to do, as a core value of the business. Can you think of maybe one or two other best practices that you really build your business, conduct your leadership on, that are based on biblical principles? What comes to mind?
John: Well, our goal is to serve the clients that God blesses us with, with excellent service. Every client we pick up, we try to have empathy and try to put ourselves in their shoes and try to understand what they need. And our business is built around that. So it’s a win-win. We don’t ever want to take anybody’s money if we see that we’re going to do something that’s not going to result in a return on investment for them. We typically tell them up front, not to bust their bubbles, but we don’t think we can help them. And we want to be able to see every client at church or on the street, shake hands, smile with them, and be friends with them. So that’s the way we work.
Ray: That is fantastic. Well, you know, one of the key elements here at Bottom Line Faith is we’re really trying to encourage Christ-followers in business. Sometimes there’s a feeling of loneliness; sometimes isolation can overwhelm us in business. So we really want this program to be an encouragement. You know, someone’s probably listening to our interview right now, and they’re discouraged. they’re downtrodden, they’re not sure where the next ability to make payroll is going to come from, or they’ve got a problem with an employee or what-have-you. What advice would you have as an encouragement to that Christ-follower in business, who right now is feeling that sense of discouragement? What could you say, that might just lift their spirits?
John: There’s only one thing, and that’s trust Christ, trust God to tell you what to do. You cannot lean on your own understanding. And so I mean, we’ve been through hundreds of them. Matter of fact, we go through it every 15th and 30th of the month during payroll. We’re always doing the same thing. But it’s trusting in God to deliver. It’s not my business. It’s His business. I’m just here to do what He tells me to do. I’m not trying to get rich anymore; I’m just trying to pay our employees, serve our clients, do what He tells me to do. That’s Ecclesiastes 2:26, “To the one who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness.” So I get up every day and say, “Lord,” whether I’m in a bad situation or a good situation, whatever, I’m saying, “Lord, I’m here to please you this day. What is it you want me to do? Show me the way to go, and I’ll do it.”
And that’s it. I don’t care what situation we’re in, you know, it’s the same thing: to trust God. I don’t know what to do. Lots of mornings, I get up, I don’t know what to do. And I’m saying right up to the last minute, “Lord, what do you want me to do? Time is here.” And He always speaks to me. I think God’s always broadcasting, and we just don’t turn our radios on; we’re not listening. So having quiet times in the morning, that is my one suggestion that I try to practice. Because it is a very lonely thing as a CEO. A lot of times, you’re up there by yourself. But you’re not ever by yourself. I mean, God’s there. He just, He wants us. I tell you, it’s just like wanting your kid to climb up in your lap and say, “Hey, Daddy, how to do this or that?” I mean, as a father, I understand that I would love my son to climb up in my lap and ask me that; I want to help him. I want him to be happy, and that’s the same way God is. I mean, I literally can feel his arms around me as I climb up His lap and say. “I don’t know what to do; show me what to do.”
Ray: That really is a great analogy. You know, that child crawling up into his lap. And before we started recording the interview, we were talking, and you used an analogy, I’d love you to just share with our audience about this balance of stress and trust. And what’s the word picture? What’s going on here?
John: Well, it’s a seesaw, and it’s one or that you’re either up or down. And I ask God every morning, you know, “Search me, O Lord, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Am I being anxious? Yes, I am anxious right now, Lord. So that must mean I’m not trusting You because if my anxiousness is up, that means my trust is down.” I mean, because, really it is no big deal with God, so as I start trusting him, my anxiousness goes away. I mean, nobody’s shooting at me, I’m sleeping in a nice bed at night. I mean, what am I anxious about? There’s nothing that man can do to hurt me. And so all of a sudden, just all of that anxiousness just goes away. And “Lord, I’m just trusting you to show me what to do.” So it’s either-or. One’s up, the other’s down. So if your anxiousness is up, then your trust must be down.
Ray: So if you’re listening, you know, as John was describing, I’m sure you can just imagine those scales: stress versus trust. And which am I really going to put my weight into? Because you can’t do both, at least not at the same time. And so I’m either going to trust God, or I’m going to allow the circumstances to give me a lot of stress, and that’s overwhelming. Well, folks, we are talking with John Lovoy, CEO of InfoMedia. we are in Birmingham, Alabama, having a great time down here, and John is sharing with us his lessons learned over many years of walking with Christ. Coming to Christ was an eventful experience, as we’ve heard about already. And so as you talk about living out your faith now, each day in the marketplace, we’ve talked about integrity, keeping our word, bringing value, loving our customers, loving our employees, those kinds of things. What challenges do you find as a Christ-follower in business? Are there any moments when, like, wow, how am I going to live out my faith here?
John: Well, one of the things I want to do, because I know when I get up in the morning and say, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” He wants me to love my wife, love my kids. But He also wants me to share what He’s invested in me; share Christ with my employees and others. And it’s hard to do; it’s very difficult to do. And I still fuss at myself every day that I’m not doing that well enough. But so anyway, that’s a challenge for me right now.
Ray: In what ways though? Does that mean, like, asking my employees if I can pray for them? Or customers? Or what’s that look like at the tangible street level for you?
John: Well, one of the things I promised my mentor that I would do is – I share this with guys too – to pray before every meeting or every meal. I don’t care who I’m with. If it’s a business meeting, and there’s 10 guys there that I don’t know, I’m going to immediately, when we sit down, I ask a blessing because that sets the tone. And same thing with any meeting. You know, just “Lord, it says in your Word, If any man lacks wisdom, to ask and He will give it to you. So we need wisdom for this meeting.” So just I’m trying to live that out more every day and trying to love all my employees, but sometimes in the middle of the day, with all the things going on, I get back and the next morning I look back, and I said, “Well, how’d I do, Lord?” And I’m like, I didn’t do very good. I was often about doing all the crazy, all the Martha things instead of the Mary things. Yeah. Take care of business.
Ray: You’re mentioning like that scenario, maybe sitting around a table with 10 strangers or 10 business associates that maybe you’re not hanging out with on a social level? What are you finding in the marketplace? Are you finding people more or less or about the same in terms of their receptivity to the whole faith discussion in the marketplace?
John: I have to open that and say, it depends on age. A lot of our employees are millennials and younger, and so it’s different with them. It’s a lot different. Older guys, when I’m around people my age, I have no problem sharing my faith. And most of my employees are younger, and for some reason, it’s a lot harder. But yeah, I don’t find as much with the younger generation. Maybe I’m just missing it.
Ray: And that’s really a great segue to this whole conversation that is so important in businesses: the millennial generation. It seems like they’re really looking for companies that have causes: social justice, companies that have a purpose. How do you tie all that together for your younger employees with what you’re doing it InfoMedia?
John: It’s difficult. My son does a great promoting community in the group, and camaraderie, and so we try to do that. But a lot of times, you know, I’m from the old school, and I want to go in and say, “You will do this,” and be sort of more demanding. And it’s sort of like pushing on a rope with some of these people. They don’t respond well, to my type of leadership. So it’s always a struggle trying to love on them, and at the same time, getting them to do what’s necessary to make a profit. I mean, we are a for-profit company. And sometimes that’s very difficult. And then in the middle of that, I’m trying to share Christ with them, which is in that mix somewhere.
Ray: On that note, you’ve owned this company since 1996.
John: Correct.
Ray: So we’re 21 years, right? And so here you are, a man trying to walk faithful and obedient with the Lord, trying to live out your faith in business. And at the same time, you have real people, real employees, real issues, real challenges. How have you worked through that as it relates to things like termination of employees? I’m sure you’ve had to terminate, and I’m sure sometimes you wrestle with, well, gosh, is that going to hinder my testimony to them? What’s that like for you?
John: That’s a great question. I know, I can still think back of one precious employee who was one of the first four people that I started InfoMedia with, we finally had to come to parting ways. That was probably the most difficult challenge, but the way I got through it was understanding that this was not my company; this was God’s company. And my job was to manage the resources that He gives me in the way that they need to be managed. And so for the good of the company, sometimes these things have to be done. And also, it affects, I think, other employees.
If you have a bad employee, and they are not, so to speak, rowing in the same direction as you, it’s not good for the rest of the people there to keep them there. So you have to do those things. And you’re right. It’s very difficult, and try to maintain a relationship with that person. Sometimes they get very angry, but you just keep reaching out and trying to maintain, and sometimes you need to have a door closed, like I did, in one area, so that God could open up a door in other areas. And so I try to explain that to them. But sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But you still have to do what you have to do. So because I have to be obedient to God, if he’s telling me to do it, then I’m going to do it.
Ray: That’s right. And sometimes they’re just not in a frame of mind to be receptive to that, right? And yet, it’s been my experience, perhaps it’s been yours as well, that you run into that person weeks, months, years later, they’re in a better place.
John: Most of the time.
Ray: Most of the time. Not always, of course, but most of the time. And I suspect that there’s right now a listener catching our conversation, and maybe they’re struggling through a situation like that, you know, they’ve got a tough decision with an employee perhaps, or a customer or whatever. And what would you say to them right now?
John: You just took the words out my mouth. It’s all about pleasing God. I mean, to the man, it says in Ecclesiastes 2:26, “To the one who pleases Him, God gives wisdom and knowledge.” What we as businessmen face all the time. We’re trying to please all of those other people.
Ray: Yeah.
John: The guy that you’re trying to terminate, or even when I go into a meeting, I going in there I say, “Lord I’m not here to please these people. I’m here to please You.” So you just do what God tells you to do to please Him, and you’re not concerned about anybody else. I mean, of course, God would want you to please them, but that’s not the issue. So when you get into a tough decision, you’ve got to – “Who am I going to please?”
Ray: I love that because you can really walk in freedom.
John: Yes, absolutely.
Ray: Because you don’t have to worry about saying something just to get an order to please them. You’re going to walk in that integrity that you were talking about earlier; you don’t have to make promises you can’t deliver upon. You don’t have to overstate things. You just trust in that.
John: Yeah, and it’s freeing because if you walk out of a bad meeting, say “Hey, that’s okay. They didn’t like us. That’s okay. God’s protecting us from that deal.” Because I’ve had some of those deals like I was telling you about. You know, we don’t want those deals. If it’s not a win-win, it’s not a good deal.
Ray: I was talking recently with a friend of mine who, 40 some years ago, started an HVAC company, in a very similar situation. He had prayed and prayed, and this incredible opportunity, the largest contract in the history of the city in which he lived was up for bid. He did all this work, thought for sure he was going to get it, waited and waited, didn’t hear anything, didn’t hear anything, called back the person who was making the decision.
Come to find out; his number one competitor had come in, that potential customer had shared all of his work, all of his drawings, all of his foundational work, and the competitor undercut his price by 15%, so they got the business. This guy was devastated. He had worked for months and months and months. Well, here’s what happened. Two years later, that company that got the business went out of business because of that contract. As they got in and started tearing away all the walls and the ceilings, they ran into an asbestos problem. And to mitigate that problem, it cost them their business. And so sometimes, John, we need to be thankful for the unanswered prayer.
John: I’ve seen that happen so many times, where, “Wow, thank you, Lord, for protecting us from getting that deal.”
Ray: Yes, yes, absolutely. Gosh, John, I can’t believe we’re already at the end of our show. It’s unbelievable how fast this 30 minutes goes here at Bottom Line Faith. And so I told you there was one question that I always end with: the 4:23 question, and we are there. In Proverbs 4:23, we read these words from Solomon. He says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it determines the course of your life.” And John, there’s some biblical scholars who believe these may have been among the last words that Solomon ever penned.
And there’s thought that perhaps he was now at the end of his life, and he was going to gather his family, his friends, and his loved ones, and basically say, “Look, I’ve given you all these principles, all these pearls of wisdom upon which to live. Now, above all else, I’m going to tell you the one thing that’s important for you to remember, and that is to guard your heart.” So, John, we don’t know when that day will come, but let’s say you have an opportunity at the end of your time this side of eternity to gather your family, your friends, your loved ones, and you’re going to give your “above all else” advice. You ready? So John, above all else…
John: It’s the same verse in Solomon. It is that if you shoot for happiness, you’ll miss the target every time. Don’t shoot for happiness; don’t aim at happiness. You’ll miss it. It’s what Solomon said, basically. He said, “Aim to please God, and He will bless you with happiness.” And that is the one thing that I would share with him. Just always try to please God in whatever you do, and He’ll bless you with happiness and wisdom and knowledge.
Ray: You’ll get it all, right?
John: Amen.
Ray: In fact, that’s how he ended up with it. God said “anything you want,” and he asked for wisdom. And God said, “I’m going to give you that and everything else.” Well, folks, I am sure that you are just as encouraged and just as inspired by the conversation that we’ve had with John Lovoy, the CEO of InfoMedia, in Birmingham, Alabama. John, just in closing, if someone would like to learn more about the company and what you’re up to, how can they find you on the web?
John: infomedia.com. That’s us.
Ray: Well, we were talking about offline, and I know that y’all have been around a while to have that domain. Means you were one of the earlier players in the web space to have infomedia.com. Any closing thoughts or comments you’d want to share with the audience today?
John: No, except that Truth At Work’s a great organization. I’ve just joined, and it’s been fantastic. It’s just like you said; it’s a very lonely place sometimes. It’s great to have other Christian business men and women to share what’s going on and try to come around you and encourage each other.
Ray: And that’s really, as I said earlier, that’s a big reason why we’re doing this program, is just to be an encouragement.
John: We all need encouragement.
Ray: And so I hope and pray today that this has been just that. John, it’s been an incredible time with you today. Well, folks, this is your host, Ray Hilbert, here at Bottom Line Faith. Again, you can check out not only this interview but our others at bottomlinefaith.org. And if you are a Christ follower in business, looking for those tools and resources to equip you to follow Jesus every day in the marketplace, to understand what it means to have a platform for Christian ministry in and through your business, check out truththatwork.org. Maybe you can even learn about one of our roundtables in a city near you. Again, Ray Hilbert, here at Bottom Line Faith. John, thanks so much for your time today.
John: It’s my pleasure.
Ray: Folks, we’ll see you next time at Bottom Line Faith.