Business Missionaries
After coming home in 2012 from doing missions work in Rwanda, Africa, we were praying about what the Lord had next for us. He answered with instructions to begin a church and later a business that would be directed prophetically by the Holy Spirit and built under His headship. That revelation, and watching the church around us rush to Humanism, helped us develop an understanding that many parts of the Body of Christ had drifted away from Christ-centered work both in their personal lives and their business lives. Christianity in the Western world was declining rapidly and the Lord spoke directly to that decline prophetically saying that its cause was rooted in a headship problem. The majority of the Body of Christ that resides in Western Culture was not under the headship of Jesus, but was functioning under its own headship. He called this building under our own headship the “Citadel”.
The “Citadel” was being built by developing business and ministry in man’s image, using personal logic and strategies with the intent to make money. The culture had become so saturated with this business model that even most Christian businessmen completely separated business from their spiritual life. He explained that He wanted us to break free from this postmodern mindset and build a church and a business being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Guided by prophetic words and scripture, we began to build, following the leading of the Holy Spirit, submitting as best we could under the headship of Jesus Christ. Miracles started to happen. Necessary money came as needed, doors opened, inspiration and direction developed through prayer and by the gifts given to those who were joining the work.
We were told that elements of the products we were creating were being divinely inspired by Him, and their design details carried symbolic meaning that would be revealed in time. For example, our “drill in” tornado icon inviting people to go deeper into the app represents God inviting us to go deeper in seeking Him. Our first app, dodl.es, will subtly include testimonies of ways that God is moving in the testimonies of this company. We were told that the creative collaboration tools within dodl.es will appeal to the masses in this new digital culture and reach many people who are otherwise closed to the gospel message, bypassing their defenses like a “Trojan Horse”.
People are the Treasure
At the onset, we were told that both the church and the business would succeed by making people our treasure, as opposed to money. From a well-established prophet in Rwanda, we were told that the money coming from this business would support many ministries and works both in the United States and in Rwanda.
We listened carefully and began to excel at finding what people loved and what they were gifted to do. We then developed and expanded job and ministry descriptions based on those abilities. We found that people really excelled in what they loved, worked harder, smarter and longer if they were being creative in what they did. They were inspired if they were doing what God had gifted them to do. And they grew deeper, both personally and professionally.
Beyond that, we watched God move in many of their lives individually. One employee from a Buddhist background had stomach issues that he was dealing with but not telling us about. In a vision, I heard from the Lord to tell him that he should take baking soda in warm water. He was in awe as he had not been sleeping for days due to the pain and it left him immediately upon drinking it. For another, we were given a word to advise him to eat 2 Brazil nuts daily, and he was shocked as he had just been given this same obscure advice by another person for an autoimmune disease. Another employee was worried about having children due to health concerns and was directed prophetically about a specific physiological issue. Once it was taken care of, his wife conceived.
Marketing to Growth Hacking
A young man hired to do business development for dodl.es quickly found his way into growth hacking. As we morphed his tasks to include research and implementation into our marketing plans, he excelled so much that we started to create better tools than he was finding in the market to increase productivity. The tools were so helpful in-house that we recognized the opportunity to take them to market as their own product lines. As these new technologies grew, we spun off a new company, Pound Social, to focus on automated marketing. We then launched our first product, #hashtagr, which helps users find the best hashtags to promote their content on social media.
As we spun off this second company, we were directed by the Lord to approach a particular Christian investor.
That he would invest was difficult to believe at first and nothing short of miraculous. He had been part of a bitter split with Craig in his previous company caused by Craig following the Lord in standing against corruption. That business ended in a lawsuit between partners before being sold for a nice profit, but God was moving to restore the relationship.
As conditions of this investment, we were not allowed to cultivate other investment relationships and were only funded on a monthly basis without a cushion, until the company was profitable.
With his capital, we were able to enhance and clean up the bugs of #hashtagr and add location searches that gives the app the ability to generate sales prospects through Instagram. We also began work on developing the next couple of apps. However, on the cusp of running advertising ads to really promote #hashtagr, with the app completely finished and bugs worked out, this investor passed away. We were warned prophetically a few months prior that this was coming and we were able to complete final transactions as a result of the warning.
We see throughout God’s word and church history, that in every endeavor guided by His Spirit, He makes His people come against opposition and struggle. It’s one reason why He is calling the work that we are doing “Business Missions”. When struggle comes, we seek the Lord again, we wait, and we do the work at hand until He answers with His solution.
As we are seeking and waiting, the Lord instructed us to begin to share the testimony of what God is doing in this work and to make the Body of Christ aware of the call to resist the citadel culture and build under the headship of Christ. Not for making more money, but for bringing glory to God in business, in work. Work as unto the Lord. Shift direction away from working for the enemy that rules this world and for selfish gain to working for Jesus. This was a commonly understood concept to Christians not so long ago, but oftentimes repulsive to believers today.
Think about it for a moment. If the core motivation for your work is money, how can that work glorify God? The love of money is the root of many evils. And we are watching those evils being exposed rapidly these days. God is calling His people to give their entire lives to Him. Including their work.
And yet we have experienced that many believers turn away from investing in our company because we refuse to take the cross out of our logo. It is baffling. We have excelled in every investment program that we have entered but when the final decisions are made we are rejected, often openly, because of our open Christian affiliation.
Work Unto the Lord, Not Unto the Citadel
Many of today’s Christian investors are saturated with worldly ideals and business philosophies. Often, they are completely separating money they give to the church and their “own” money. They will invest in a fund that is supporting sinful vices, like pornography, drugs, or abortion with no problem because it’s profitable. Some of these “Christian” monies are going directly to attacking the church. Retirement funds and mutual funds invest in Big Tech while Big Tech is attacking Christian content and diminishing its reach.
God has been calling us to build under His headship in opposition to the Citadel. The business is going well in building as He is directing, (see deck) though we are once again at an impasse and in need of funds. We have been instructed at this juncture to reach out to Christians and explain the mission aspect and work that we are doing and offer the opportunity to support it. Not only in the business of dodl.es but in the spiritual work that we are doing through it unto the Lord. We are asking you to pray about this and consider giving. We are available for any questions, especially regarding what the Lord has been doing in this, the miracles, the prophetic words given and fulfilled, the staff and their dedication, even working for months at a time for stock only and other times for half pay. We are excited to see what God will do.
