The $20M Church Mistake: Rethinking Business & Faith | Nicole Vallance DSH #972

If a pastor has a job and they do have a job, it's not, they're not the ones in ministry.

Ministry is what I do outside of the four walls of the local church in business.

And so the ministers are not the pastors that are speaking on Sunday.

All right, guys, Connected with Nicole is here today, going through a massive transformation in your business right now, right?

Yeah, I am.

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, because I know you used to coach pastors and churches and you're kind of transitioning away into bigger things now, right?

Yeah, a couple years ago, major, major change.

And what caused that?

You know, I have a lot of respect for like all the leadership guys, right?

John Maxwell, Jim Collins, Patrick Lincolni.

And I listened to a message from John Maxwell, and it was called Winning Our World for Christ.

So I became a Christian when I was 19, and I listened to this message by John.

You know, he was a church planner, pastor, just like I've been, you know, for 20 years.

And he said he had this season in his life where he calls it the crossover, where instead of just being focused on building the local church, he crossed over into leadership and business.

And I mean, who hasn't heard of John Maxwell, right?

And so he did this message for pastors and leaders at a conference.

And he said, what are we going to do about the 53% of people that are never coming to our churches?

Like, if you're a Christian or you believe in the resurrection of Jesus, you know, if you, if you, you know, believe all of that and you want to reach people, they're not coming to church.

And so John talks about like how the church is irrelevant if we're not

connected with people that are different than us, if we're not out in the marketplace, in business, in government, like we're so disconnected.

And he did that message and I was like, you know what?

Like I'm going to switch over.

Like I'm going to cross over.

Like I'm really going to go after the business owners and the leaders and serve them and help their organizations grow,

but teach them how to reach people in their business for Christ.

Right.

I love that.

And you've been involved with the church for 20 years, right?

So do you see the numbers dropping year by year?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, the churches it is, okay, Sean, like 97% of churches in America are under 70 people.

Wow.

Yeah.

Under 70 people.

97% of churches in America.

And

if you do the math, like, so on average, the amount of people that come to Christ in a year, 0.5%

come to Christ and have a relationship with God from church on Sunday.

95%, Sean, come through a coworker, through a friend.

And so we think that the way to change people's lives is by getting them to come to church, but it's not.

It never has been, and it's still not today.

So what do you think the best way is, then?

The best way, listen, it's hard to have compassion on who you're not connected to.

And so I think the best way is business.

I think that the greatest, greatest leaders, Sean, we think that there's this separation between the sacred and the secular.

We think, oh, the sacred is the Billy Grahams and the Mother Teresas and and the Popes and the Pastors.

No.

The secular is sacred.

It's the business owners, it's the entrepreneurs.

I think the true heroes of America, at the very least, are the business owners, the entrepreneurs.

They're the ones that are making capitalism possible.

They're the ones that are employing people.

They're the ones that are bringing products and services to market.

And so if business owners and leaders can really find out like who they are and how important their work is, we really can't change the world.

And it's not being done through the four walls of the local church.

It's just not.

And And that belief is probably different from most, right?

So, so different.

So different, Sean.

Yeah, because there's four major misbeliefs.

Could we go through these?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the first one is the church is called to operate primarily inside of a building.

Yeah.

Do you believe you could operate anywhere?

Yeah.

So when we, when you say church, one of my questions I hate is when people say, Nicole, where do you go to church?

That's the wrong question.

The right question is, who are you serving?

Who are you impacting?

Who are you influencing for Christ?

The church, the Greek word for church is the word ecclesia, which means the people of God.

And ecclesia was actually taken from the Romans, right?

In the Romans, the ecclesia was literally the word that was described for the politicians and the leaders who came together to make decisions for the city.

And so in the Bible, when they talk about the church, it's talking about the leaders, the marketplace leaders, the business owners that are coming together to make decisions on behalf of the good of the community.

And so it's not about like where we go to church.

It's who are we being the church to?

You know, Jesus, he loves people.

He healed people.

He helps people most of the miracles sean that were done during jesus's life and during the early church were not done in the temple within the four walls of our traditional church they were done in people's homes they were done in business they were done

not not within the temple court so and that's actually interesting to me because a big part of the reason i didn't like going to church was because it was so far away it felt like a hassle like we had to drive 40 minutes you know what i mean yeah as a kid the goal isn't going isn't to go to church like as a christian like i became a christian when i was 19 and I prayed this prayer Sean, I said, God, if you're real, make yourself real to me.

Right.

Like, isn't that true?

Like, doesn't everybody listening?

Like, if God is real, if Jesus rose from the dead, like, I don't want to just be religious.

I don't want to go to church on Sunday because I think it makes me a better person.

I don't.

Right.

Like, to me, a lot of people think being a Christian is about being more moral.

To me, that's not it.

I know a lot of Hindus, Jewish people, atheists, agnostic, that to be honest, like are way more moral than I am.

Honestly, to be, to me, being a Christian isn't about me being more moral.

It's about being forgiven.

It's about having an actual real relationship with God.

And so it's like, if we actually believe that, then our mission isn't so much we've got to be more moral and we've got to get people to come to church.

Like we have to have an actual real relationship with God and be connected with people so that if and when they're ready and open to hear about our relationship with God, we're there for them.

But we're not there for them because we're trying to get them to come to church.

We're there for them because like we're in their lives and we care about them and we want to serve them and we're helping them and we're employing them and all that.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, I do hear a lot of people join to like heal themselves or cure their sins.

So that's interesting perspective you're providing.

Another misbelief is the primary role of marketplace Christians is to make money to support the vision of those in the ministry.

So is that the tithing you're talking about?

Yeah.

So we think like, you know, when you have a church, we think that there's like the business people.

Right that come in and they're making money.

And so we want them to give and to tithe.

And sure, everyone should give and tithe to any mission, right?

Any organization that they want to be a part of.

But sometimes we think that we separate it.

We say, okay, the business leaders and the entrepreneurs, they're called to support those who are in ministry.

And to me, if a pastor has a job and they do have a job, it's not, they're not the ones in ministry.

Their job is to support and equip and train those who are in ministry.

Who are those that are in ministry?

Not those that are speaking on stage on Sundays.

No.

Ministry,

this is what 2 Corinthians says, that we have been reconciled to Christ as Christians, and we've been given the ministry of reconciliation.

And so, what is ministry?

Ministry is what I do outside of the four walls of the local church in business at my job.

And so, the ministers are not the pastors that are speaking on Sunday.

That's not who the ministers are.

The ministers are the me, the you, the Moses Heredias, the business leaders, the business owners that are 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like, you know, doing all the things outside of typical church on Sunday.

Everyday person.

Yeah.

Everyday person.

That's the minister.

That's the leader.

You know, we think, if you think of a missionary, you think about somebody who's spiritual, we have images that come to our mind.

It's like, but every single person is a missionary.

Every single person can be on mission.

Every single person can do ministry.

And as a Christian, it's our responsibility.

I mean, if we really believe, Sean, if you think about this, if Christians actually believe, if it, let's say it's true that Jesus rose from the dead, and I don't know, you know, exactly where you're at with your faith or where your listeners are at, but if that's true as a Christian, like if somebody has cancer and we have the cure, like, wouldn't you think our number one job would be like to give them the cure?

Yeah.

And so, but a lot of Christians don't know that and they don't, um, they haven't been told that.

And I just think that that's so important.

I think the people that have the greatest ability to impact people are the Christian business owners.

Absolutely.

And that's a perfect segue into this next misbelief, right?

Because people involved in business cannot be as spiritual as those serving in traditional church ministry.

That's that's a myth, right?

That's such a myth.

You know,

Moses Saradia and I,

we met last year and he recently brought me on as executive vice president of his company.

And I love consulting business owners, you know, with all of my heart.

And

let me just tell you, Sean, he was just with Donald Trump two weeks ago.

He, you know, we had politicians at his office a couple days ago.

We have hundreds of employees.

You know, we're 10xing his company this year.

We're with people of all different faiths, all different walks.

Like, like we do morning, you know, huddles where we do prayer and we're like, that is, that is so spiritual.

I don't know how that's not spiritual.

We reach more people through his company and business owners have an opportunity to reach more people through their company than 97% of churches in America.

Absolutely.

That's spiritual to me.

Yeah, because within a church, you could reach a couple hundred people.

Maybe if you're a mega church, you have a couple thousand.

If you're Sean Kelly, you can reach.

With social media, you can reach out on one video like three times a day.

That's right.

So yeah, the scale is way bigger, right?

Yeah.

So if you don't view your podcast as spiritual, if you don't view your business as spiritual, if you view it as just secular or not important, like if Jesus was on the earth today, Sean, you know what he would have?

Instagram.

Yeah.

Digital social hour.

You know, he would have, you know, global processes and systems, business.

Like that's what he would be doing.

I love that.

That's super cool.

Yeah.

So speaking of Trump and just politics in general, where are you at with that whole, that whole debacle, I guess?

Yeah.

You know,

here's, here's my thoughts on politics.

I don't know if you remember the Olympics and the whole Last Supper thing that happened.

Yeah, the opening.

I'm sure you've heard from a number of your Christian friends, right?

It's like they were so offended, the Christian community, they were pissed.

They were like, How dare they make a mockery of Jesus?

And

let me just tell you, like, Sean, I'm conservative, right?

Like, I have traditional Christian values.

I do, okay.

I do.

However, I think it is so hypocritical and it pisses me all the way off.

Okay.

For us Christians to sit on our moral high ground and judge these people.

Sean, the Christians that are complaining about the people that were making a mockery of the Last Supper, right, during the Olympics, are the same people that if you asked them, who was the last person you led to Christ and when was the last time you tried it, they wouldn't have an answer.

I would say, who is an LGBTQ or transgender person in your life that you love, that loves you, that you know they're, you, you, you know, everything that's going on in your life, you're praying for them.

Like, if you think that what they're doing is such a sin, like, like, okay, like, we're all entitled to believe what we want to believe about what is moral, what is not moral.

But if you think that is so immoral, then why don't you go ahead and be the change that you want to see in the world?

See, the same people that are complaining about what happened at the Last Supper, I promise you, are the same people that are not connected to people far from Christ.

I think it is irresponsible and ungodly.

If anything is ungodly, it's ungodly to be a Christian and not have non-Christian friends.

That's ungodly.

It's ungodly to believe that somebody has cancer and you have the cure and not give them the cure.

If we really believe that the world is lost and dying without Christ and we don't care and we're not connected to them and we're not sharing Christ with them, then shut all the way up.

Like, I don't care.

I'm so tired of it.

So to all of the people that are complaining about, you know, how dark and sinful our world is,

we'll do something about it.

And, you know, it's like, I don't know why we're surprised at how broken and far people are from God when we're not doing anything about it to change them.

Yeah, you see all these people complaining on social media, but nothing happens.

Yeah, ask them, who do you know?

Who do you know and love in your life that's far from Christ and how are you serving them?

Because you know what Jesus was doing?

He was turning water into wine.

He was healing Peter's mother-in-law.

He was feeding the poor.

So like, I'm just tired of all of our, like, we're on our holy high ground with all of our morals.

And that's not what Jesus came to do.

He came to heal the sick.

He came to be in people's lives.

And I don't want to hear not one more person complain about how dark and broken and sinful and liberal our world is.

And they're not connecting with them and helping them know Christ.

It's, it's, it's, it's wrong.

Right.

Cause a lot of people live in their own bubble, right?

Certain religions, especially, like, not to call anyone out, but like certain Mormon churches, like, you can't even be friends with them.

Yeah, it's wrong.

Like, speaking from a Christian worldview,

Jesus was friends with sinners, you know, and

his team, Sean, was was they were millionaires they were business owners they were leaders like you you can't find

you can't find anybody that was on jesus's team that was like just totally just religious they were people that were far from god they were people that you know were the the uneducated some of them some of them were you know they had businesses and so you know i just look at who jesus was reaching and who was on his team and who he was reaching was people far from god that's who he cared about and who was on his team was the business owners and and the leaders.

And that's so interesting to me because they never teach that.

Never.

They just show him as some spiritual leader.

They never talk about the business.

But I got some crazy facts here that you sent.

So of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context.

Is that not crazy?

Which is nuts.

And then 132 public appearances of Jesus, 122 were in the workplace.

That's massive.

And then out of the 40 miracles in Acts, 39 were in the workplace.

Yeah, so we think the miracle and the transformation is going to say, come to church, come to church, come to church.

No, no, no.

Sean, the great commission, the great assignment is to go into the workplace, is to go into the marketplace.

So if ministry and spiritual things are happening anywhere, it's not happening on church on Sunday.

It's happening in our businesses Monday through Friday.

Yeah, you're rewiring a lot of people watching this right now because some people would feel shame for missing church to work, but you're kind of reshifting that mindset.

Let me just tell you something.

I have people in my family that don't know God and, you know, and they've got soccer tournaments and they got things on the weekend.

And I would rather, if there's a Christian in their lives, I would rather that christian be connected with my family and know that their assignment and their mission is to reach my family member far from christ for than for them to go to church on sunday and serve coffee and be a greeter at the front door

yeah then you're at the mercy of the person teaching too so sometimes you don't align with their values and you're just listening to them they're just listening and and you know and you know sean like i i do i work with churches all over the country

Listen, if a pastor in a local church is passionate about reaching people far from God, and there are good churches that do that, most don't, but I'm all about it.

But most churches, Sean, don't even give people an opportunity to accept Christ on Sunday.

So like if

we believe that Jesus rose from the dead and that he's the way, the truth, and the life, and I believe that he is, and then we do all of this work to get people to come to church on Sunday, and then we don't give them an opportunity to accept and have a relationship with God,

like.

W, what are we doing?

It makes no sense to me.

It's, it's, it's, it's just ridiculous.

And it needs to change.

It needs to change.

So when you say accept, what does that mean exactly?

Accept God?

Yeah.

So it's by by leaf.

You know, know, a lot of people say that they're, you know, if you think about what sin is going to keep you out of heaven, right?

It's like, or, you know, who's going to go to hell?

There's only one sin that'll keep you out of heaven, Sean, and it's refusal to believe in the Son of God.

It's unbelief.

That's it.

Jesus said, if you believe that I died on the cross, that I rose from the dead, if you put your faith in me, you're going to heaven.

That's it.

It's so easy, Sean, for people to accept, receive this free gift of salvation.

That's what Christmas is all about.

It's about the tree and it's about the gifts.

in it and so there was Jesus.

He died on the cross.

He rose from the dead and he's offering everyone this free gift of salvation.

And all you have to do is unwrap it and receive it and say, thank you God so much.

Being a good person doesn't get me to heaven.

Jesus, but you died.

You paid my penalties so I could go to heaven.

So thank you so much.

Okay, I'm going to be so happy about my whole life.

My good works couldn't get me into heaven and now that I'm a Christian, my bad works can't keep me out.

I'm real happy about it.

Super easy.

What's your opinion on sinning?

Because a lot of people feel shame and they seem to, certain people prey on it, right?

So how do you feel about it?

Yeah, well, my sin is a Christian, like, doesn't define me.

Now, I don't, listen, Sean, like, I'm right with God.

I promise you, I, I, I sin more.

I sin, I sin.

We all sin.

Yeah.

You know, but that's not my sin no longer can, I no longer have to pay the penalty for my sin ever.

No matter what sin I commit now or in the future, Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my past, present, and future sins.

So I'm not worried about it.

Like me and God, we're good.

Okay.

All I'm worried about now is not whether I'm right with God or reading my Bible enough or going to church church or doing all the X, Y, and Z thing.

No, I'm not worried about that at all.

Not one bit.

What I'm concerned about is how am I loving people?

How am I serving people?

How am I reaching people for Christ?

That's it.

That's what I'm obsessed about.

How can I serve business owners?

Number one, like just practically, Sean, in my life, I'm not worried about sin.

In my life, I'm worried about, okay, how can I help the Moses Heredias of the world 10x their company?

How can I help him make more money?

How can I help him engage his employees?

How can I actually like help him get his product and service to market faster?

Number one.

And then number two, how can I help him as a Christian business owner to use the platform and the position and the influence that God has given him to reach people for Christ?

That's all I think about.

That's all I care about.

Me and God, we're good.

That's the whole point of Jesus dying and rising from the dead.

And he took care of all the sin.

I'm not worried about sin, not one bit.

I'm not a sinner anymore.

I'm a saint.

There we go.

Yeah, because if you get 10x's business, you're going to impact millions of lives because

100 employees right now.

So you're going to have thousands of families taken care of, plus the impact of all the knowledge he's sharing to the world.

So much.

And, you know sean like this is this is where it's so spiritual we think like so we're in merchant services so we help businesses save money um with uh you know the credit card processing fees right and so so

I tell me something that's more spiritual than us helping small to medium-sized businesses save money and employ more people and get their products and services to market faster.

That's super spiritual.

That's super holy to me.

So you're telling me that we have a way with global processing systems to help businesses serve their employees and employ more people, serve their families, put food on their table.

That's not spiritual.

That is spiritual.

Like, that's what God cares about.

And so we're in the business of helping business owners that make capitalism possible.

Like small to medium-sized business owners are the backbone of our country.

The backbone.

Okay.

America and capitalism does not exist without small to medium-sized business owners.

And a company like Moses' Global Processing Systems gets to serve those businesses and help them, you know, save money and have, you know, better products.

That's super holy.

And I think that God cares all the way about that.

It's incredible.

And I think people should view business that way as a win-win, right?

Because you're helping them save money.

You're not taking anything from them.

PayPal and Stripe are out here ripping people off.

Ripping people off.

You know, taking 4% these days.

Yeah.

So you're helping them save tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.

You have no idea.

Which is great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, with global, like we don't have the overhead that the banks do.

You know, so it's like the money that we see.

I see it every single day.

Like the money that we're able to save business owners and then the commission that we're able to

help our sales agents make, it's ridiculous.

And so I get the opportunity, you know, because I'm the organizational girl, right?

Like if you want to engage your employees, you want to align everyone around the vision of your company, like get me in there, right?

Okay, number one.

And so I get to serve companies like Moses's, like sign me all the way up.

And then

if he's wanting to, and he is, if a business owner is wanting to, and then I get to help them see how important and holy and sacred their role is as a business owner and impacting people far from god sign me up every single day of the week that's what i'm giving my life to i love it i don't want to build a church on sunday i want to be the church monday through friday got to think big got churches limited that's with retail in general i feel like you know if you want to impact millions it's hard to do at retail yeah it's true and now you're working on a book a mastermind you got a lot going on yeah yeah we're excited yeah the book uh mobilize the mission is coming out in january i'm super excited it's for the for-profit and the non-profit sector so whether you're a business owner or you're a church or you lead a nonprofit, it's all about, listen, I love organizations.

Like people spend most of their waking life at their job.

Okay.

So like I'm super passionate about helping business owners create the right culture, engage, train their teams, develop an executive leadership team.

So that's what my book's all about.

I'm also coming out with a Christian leadership planner that helps Christians stay on track with the assignment and the call of God on their life.

And then, yeah, Moses and I are partnering together.

We're launching our mastermind in January, and that's going to be sick.

You got to apply to be a part of that.

Yeah, I can't wait.

We'll link it below.

Maybe you said in January it launched it.

Yeah, January.

So this might air before that, but we'll find a way to integrate that.

Yeah, thanks, Sean.

Yeah.

I love how open you are, honestly, because you respect other religions, beliefs,

even though you're Christian, obviously.

Oh, yeah.

I got a lot of friends that are Buddhist, you know, Muslim, like, you know, and not everyone is ready to accept my worldview.

Not everyone is ready to have a relationship with God, you know, the way that I would say it.

But if and when they are ready, like I grew up Catholic, like I believed in God, but I didn't become like a full-blown Christian and surrender my life to Christ until I was 19.

And I thank God that I had people that were in my life that when I had questions could answer them, that I could go to.

And so Christianity is not about forcing a religion on people.

It's about like, I have a real relationship with God.

And I love you and I want to serve you.

And I want to help you no matter what you believe, no matter, you know, what your sexual orientation is, no matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, I don't care.

It's like, I want to love you.

I want to serve you.

And if and when you're ready to find out about my God and my relationship with God, I want to be here to help tell you about it.

Right.

I love it.

Well, where can people find you, Nicole?

It's been fun.

Yeah, thanks, Sean.

Yeah.

So, uh, Connected with Nicole is my Instagram and connectedwithnicole.com.

If people want to set up a strategy call or find out about all the things, they can text the word Nicole to 33777.

Boom.

We'll link below.

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks, Sean.

Yep, thanks for watching, guys.

Check out the link below, and I'll see you next time.