What changed in v1.2
- Added "What we believe" and "How we approach business because of this" headings to the manifesto to make the difference explicit
- Added an introduction to explain our approach to sharing scriptures in the manifesto
- Updated the manifesto language, claims, subclaims and summaries to use more precise language
- Separated subclaim "How it connects" list into a scripture "Summary" and "Our Thoughts" on these scriptures, to make the difference explicit
God wants you to live an eternal life of creativity, abundance and authority with Him. However, an intelligent spiritual enemy, who is determined to cause death, poverty and destruction through deception, rebelled against God and broke our original connection with Him by causing mankind to sin. God restored that broken connection and revealed the Path needed to have our sins forgiven and return to an eternal life filled with creativity, abundance and authority alongside Him — but only if you choose to accept it with faith.
This Path (the way and the truth and the life) is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is still alive today. Starting the Path means changing the way we think and accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour and His gift of salvation. Walking the Path involves loving others as ourselves in all areas of our lives. The royal commandment of Love Your Neighbour As Yourself (LYNAY).
As entrepreneurs, this includes loving our customers as ourselves. One way we can do this is by operating the internal part of our businesses like a ministry and modelling that ministry on the ministry of Jesus. This means solving our customers' problems, helping them receive life-improving transformations, teaching and sharing the gospel of the kingdom along the way.
To be extremely clear, this does not imply that Jesus sold healing, biblical teaching, preaching or anything He did to help people. Nor does this imply that we should sell anything of that nature. We are only taking our business (that already sells products and services that God would be happy for us to sell) and running it in a way that applies Christ's teachings and models His actions. It also does not suggest that business is the only way or area in life to love others as ourselves. It is just looking at one of many areas of an entrepreneur's life where this commandment could be applied and what that would look like.
What we believe
God made you to live with Him forever. He made you like Himself — someone who creates. He hands you real work and real authority. He asks you to trust Him for what you need. He made us to know Him and to live under His good rule as a truly loving Father would. However, mankind disobeyed God, bringing sin into the world. This was triggered by an intelligent spiritual enemy, who rebelled against God. Scripture describes his work as theft, death and destruction. This sin broke the original level of connection we had with God. But God made reconnection possible again and revealed the Path needed to return to eternal life alongside Him — but only if you receive this gift with faith.
This Path (the way and the truth and the life) is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is still alive today. Starting the Path means wholeheartedly changing the way we think and accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour and His gift of salvation. Those saved by grace are also called to follow Christ and love others in all areas of our lives. The royal commandment of Love Your Neighbour As Yourself (LYNAY).
How we approach business because of this
We believe that as entrepreneurs, loving others as ourselves includes loving our customers as ourselves. One way we can do this is by taking a ministry-minded approach to business, inspired by the example of Jesus.
To be extremely clear:
- This does not imply that anything we do in business could ever be compared to the miracles Jesus did
- This does not imply that Jesus sold healing, biblical teaching, preaching or anything He did to help people
- This does not imply that we should sell anything of that nature
- This does not imply that business is the only way or area in life to love others as ourselves
We are only letting the teachings and actions of Christ govern the way we do everything, including business. We are only selling products and services that we believe God would be happy for us to sell. And we are only viewing business as one of many areas in our lives where this commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves applies.
To do this, making money cannot be the business focus. Customer success stories are the business focus. Money is simply a receipt we receive when we successfully serve a person through our business (even if they pay before they receive the service, as that payment is still up for refund until an expected result is delivered). That receipt can then be used to serve more people (whether that's more customers, our friends and family, the church or complete strangers in need).
When profit is the focus, our quality of service to customers can be compromised and money can become an idol. When sustainably serving as many customers as we can is the focus, our quality of service stays high, we stay aligned with the teachings of Jesus and profits get generated anyway as a side effect.
The seed we must sow to produce the fruit of customer success is wisdom. Wisdom is the proven ability to apply knowledge and skills rightly. Stewarding wisdom (yours and your team's) for the service of customers is the job.
The reverence of God is the beginning of wisdom.
When profit is the focus, our quality of service to customers can be compromised and money can become an idol. When sustainably serving as many customers as we can is the focus, our quality of service stays high, we stay more aligned with the teachings of Jesus and profits can get generated anyway as a side effect.
If customer success is the output we need to produce, then the input for this is skill. Stewarding skills (yours and your team's) for the service of customers is the job. Wisdom governs how we use skill to serve customers.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.