When 80 Employees Pray for Their Co-workers (w/ Sean Kouplen)
On this episode, Sean Kouplen (CEO of Regent Bank) shares how one of America’s fastest growing banks also facilitates a prayer ministry among its employees. Sean also shares about a nationwide faith in work movement called 94X.
Sean Kouplen is the Chairman & CEO of Regent Bank, Oklahoma’s Past Secretary of Commerce & Workforce Development, and the founder of the 94X Faith in Work movement.
In 2008, Kouplen led an investor group that purchased 110-year old Regent Bank in Nowata, OK. Since that time, the bank has expanded to seven markets throughout Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas, and has grown from $72 million to over $1.8 billion in assets- making it one of America’s fastest-growing banks. Regent Bank has won many awards including Inc Magazine’s Best Places to Work and the Central United States Community Bank of the Year.
In his governor-appointed role as Secretary of Commerce and Workforce Development, Kouplen led the economic development, community development and workforce development efforts for the state of Oklahoma. Kouplen was the head coach of the 2022 Oklahoma Little League World Series that achieved global fame because of Isaiah Jarvis’ hug felt around the world. He holds numerous local and statewide leadership positions, and his awards include Journal Record’s Most Admired CEO Award, his fraternity’s top national alumni award, and Citizen of the Year in Bixby, OK.
Kouplen has written four popular books, hosts a nationwide podcast called 94X Kingdom Driven CEO, and leads a daily call-in devotional that has reached over 300,000 people in all 50 states and four foreign countries. He recently launched a nationwide faith in work movement called 94X that is rapidly spreading throughout the US and beyond.
He has been married to Angela for 26 years and they have three children- Emory (20), Kennedy (17) and Finley (14).
Key Takeaways
- Sean Kouplen shared how a financial crisis in 2009 at Regent Bank led him to recognize God’s involvement in his business, prompting a shift in his leadership approach to one of servitude and faith-driven decision-making.
- Sean emphasized the importance of creating a workplace culture where employees feel genuinely cared for, sharing stories of employees who experienced love and spiritual transformation for the first time in their careers.
- The workplace culture at Regent Bank includes daily devotionals, prayer support, and a focus on understanding employees’ personal challenges, which has led to 39 employees accepting Jesus in the office this year.
- Sean clarified that faith-based initiatives at Regent Bank are voluntary and non-coercive, creating an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing struggles and seeking prayer support.
- A prayer team was established at Regent Bank, with 80 employees participating. The team uses a dedicated email system to receive and respond to prayer requests, resulting in 157 recorded answered prayers over the past few years.
- Sean discussed the importance of offering prayer in a natural and non-intrusive way, emphasizing the phrase ‘Can I pray with you?’ as a key approach to fostering deeper connections.
- The 94X Faith and Work Movement, founded by Sean, aims to help Christian business leaders integrate their faith into their work environments through resources like 94X University, which provides legal and biblical guidance.
- Sean shared Regent Bank’s commitment to faith-based banking, inviting like-minded individuals to bank with them and highlighting their core purpose of demonstrating God’s love to employees and clients.
- Sean discussed his involvement in a pro-life fintech initiative and the challenges faced, including having their bank account shut down, positioning Regent Bank as a refuge for those facing similar issues.
- Sean expressed a global vision for the 94X movement, aiming to inform Christian business leaders worldwide about the legality and methods of incorporating faith into their work.
Theology of Business is the show for marketplace Christians seeking to explore and apply God’s will for business. If you want to learn more about how to do business for the glory of God and shape culture through discipling the business world, this show is for you.
Full Episode Transcript
Heads up: This transcript was created with AI, so you might notice a few typos or small mistakes. We recommend listening to the episode for the best experience!
SPEAKER_00 0:02
Access more. Welcome to the Theology of Business Podcast, where marketplace Christians explore God’s will and ways for business. This show features conversations with today’s Christ-centered business leaders who are representing Christ faithfully in the business world. I’m your host, Darren Schear, and if you want to make your work, leadership, and company’s culture more Christ-centered, you’ve come to the right place. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Theology of Business Podcast. I’m your host, Darren Schear, and this is the show for Marketplace Christians seeking to explore and apply God’s will for business. On this episode, we’re joined by Sean Copeland. Sean is the CEO and chairman of Regent Bank, and he’s Oklahoma’s past Secretary of Commerce and Workforce Development and founder of the 94X Faith and Work movement. And we’ll hear very shortly what 94X is all about. It’s just a great concept. And he was the head coach of the 2022 Oklahoma Little League World Series that achieved global fame because of Isaiah Jarvis’s hug felt round the world. And a lot of you listeners will remember seeing that viral video on ESPN or wherever you you saw it of the boy that got hit in the helmet with the ball. And it was just a really scary, scary hit. And the pitcher just melted to tears. And uh and and Isaiah went out to the mound and gave him a big hug. Um, just an incredible, incredible moment. Uh Sean has written four popular books, hosts a nationwide podcast called 94x Kingdom Driven CEO, and leads a daily call-in devotional that has reached over 300,000 people in all 50 states and four foreign countries. And he recently launched a nationwide faith and work movement called 94X that is rapidly spreading throughout the US and beyond. Sean, welcome to the Theology of Business podcast. Thank you, Darren. I appreciate being here. Sean, when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work and business?SPEAKER_01 2:11
Oh, that is an excellent question. So um I would go all the way back to uh 2009. So we we bought the uh we bought Regent Bank in 2008. Okay, April Fool’s Day of 2008. The worst time in the history of mankind, actually, it has been proven to be the worst time, worse than the Great Depression. So um I and I had seen I had seen a little bit of faith in work previously. I had had some bosses that would do Bible studies, you know, within the office, or but it was it was pretty limited. Um, and um, long story short, what happened in 2009 is the bank should have gone under. We uh when the mortgage crisis hit, we began to lose an enormous amount of money. We didn’t have a lot of mortgages, but a lot of our loans started to go bad, and our my investors uh could not invest any more money with me. I was broke. Um, I was in church, and the the band was singing the song uh healer. I believe you’re my healer. I believe you’re more than enough for me, the Carrie Job song. And I was thinking, this is the biggest bunch of baloney because I’ve been praying for six months and no healing is occurring in my life. And and I felt the Lord speak to me and tell me that he would be my healer, that he was going to take care of me. And two days later, we got a miraculous capital injection of three million dollars from the US Treasury Department that nobody can explain to me to this day. It it and the way it all played out is so wild that I began to realize uh how much God loved me, he did want to take care of me, and that he really had something special in store for this company. And so we really turned it over to him. So it’s been a it’s been a really a process since that time to kind of get to where we are now, but that’s really where it where it began.SPEAKER_00 4:16
Wow. And so for you personally, prior to that, were you just sort of uh coasting as a as a Christian in the marketplace and just not no intentionality or anything, but then that’s right, you God’s kindness led you to repentance kind of a deal.SPEAKER_01 4:35
That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. I I you I’ve been a believer since I was eight years old, and uh, but I never really I went through a discipleship group about 15 years ago that really helped me to build a more intimate relationship uh with Jesus. And so it became more of who I was. I just never really brought it into work. I it just never, I just never crossed that line. I, you know, everybody knew that I was a Christian and I loved Jesus, but I just never I wasn’t ever proactive in in bringing it into my employees uh until that happened. And and really the the mindset uh that I took on, and and I want to stress here, you know, this none of us are perfect. So I’m not in any way attempting to say that I’ve got this all figured out, but I will say this. What I what I began doing after the after the Lord uh gave me that crazy miracle was I just really took a demotion. Okay. So I basically said, hey, uh, you know, I am I my title say chairman and CEO of the bank, but really I’m gonna move down into middle management. And I began to just ask Jesus, what do you want us to do here? Well, what do you want me to do? How can I serve you in this company? This company would not exist if it wasn’t for you. So how can I glorify you with with Regent Bank? And as you know, that’s just led to a whole lot of wild stuff that he’s kind of placed on my heart to do. And it it is it has been pretty uh remarkable.SPEAKER_00 6:18
Yeah. So so not middle management in the org chart, but middle management in your relations to God. Is that what you’re saying?SPEAKER_01 6:26
Yes, middle management in terms of, you know, if we and I’ve actually actually I’ve thought about this, actually publishing an organizational chart that has uh me below uh God, you know. I mean, that because that’s that’s really how I feel. I mean, really, we’re driving in this morning, you know, I was literally my our my conversation with the Lord was okay, uh, you know, what do you want me to do today? I mean, it’s no different than what I go to my employees and ask them to help me with projects. Uh I’m saying the same thing, you know, what what should I share, you know, on Darren’s podcast? What I’ve got a speaking engagement later. What do you want me to share in that? How can I glorify the employees in our employee meeting I just came out of? What please guide me, please guide me? And it’s just a it’s just different than coming in and going, okay, I gotta have all the answers, you know. I’ve got to, I’m the I’m the big boss, and everybody looks to me. And I it’s just a very different way of approaching uh leadership and it’s has really been a game changer for me personally.SPEAKER_00 7:34
Yeah. And it’s it’s because I mean, what you just described to me, it’s not just that God is the is the chairman, God is the CEO, but God is your entry-level employee. God is every team member in that meeting today. And so the way that you treat them, the way you relate to them, is exactly how you’re treating uh God himself. Um, there’s there’s no the there’s no other other way you can treat somebody except the way that you’re you’re treating God. Right. Sean, what’s uh what’s one of your favorite stories that illustrates the impact being made by Regent Bank?SPEAKER_01 8:13
You know, let me give you, let me give you two if if you don’t mind, and they’ll they’re quick ones, but um one was at our Faith at Works summit. So uh I know we’ll talk about 94X. This is a this is a Faith at Work movement, and we had a large summit here um about a month and a half ago and had about 650 leaders. Well, one of my senior level employees attended uh the summit and sent me an email after the fact about this amazing um spiritual experience that she had had, that literally she felt the Lord speak to her. She felt the Holy Spirit when she got home that night literally come down on her, that all of this guilt and shame and all of the things that she had been carrying her whole life washed away and it just changed her life. I mean, I mean, she she was an amazing employee before, she is a totally different individual now, and so that was that was very, very emotional for me. And then similarly, about two weeks ago, uh I meet with all of our new employees uh on a quarterly basis. So each quarter we get together, and uh there were probably 10 or 12 of them in the room. And then one of the ladies said, um, we were going around and introducing ourselves, and she said, I just got to tell you, she said, in 34 years of work, this is the first time I’ve ever felt loved at work. And the lady next to her said, Um, okay, I that’s great, but I will one up you in 57 years on this earth. This is the first time I’ve ever felt loved. Oh my god. Period in my life. And that is when I thought, man, there is really something to this. It’s not religion. It is how can I pray for you? How can I support you? You know, we are gonna have a daily devotional. Would you like to attend? It’s caring about people in a deeper way, and it has just really changed our entire uh culture. It doesn’t uh even kind of feel like work. It looks like, you know, what we’re trying to do is be a light unto others, and the numbers and the growth and all the metrics that you need for shareholders and all that stuff kind of take care of themselves. We are just loving the employees. So I that is those are probably two of my favorites. I’ve had 39, uh, and and glory to God, not not absolutely not to me, but I’ve had 39 uh people accept Jesus in my office this year. Wow. So I mean it’s it’s so I mean there are a lot of highlights, but probably those two are are my favorites.SPEAKER_00 11:07
So 39 people accept Christ, like how does that how does that come about?SPEAKER_01 11:11
That’s a great question. It’s all different, okay? So it may be uh, you know, hey, I’m I’m really struggling, you know, would you pray with me? You know, could I come pray with you? And they come in and we pray together, and it just leads to that. It may be that I’m I’m visiting with somebody and the Lord kind of shows me um, you know, they don’t know me. And I might just ask, hey, you know, do you do you it’s all very logical. It’s not, it’s not weird. It might be we had one employee who’s who was a pretty overt um atheist and had been pretty not not rude about it, but pretty open about the fact that he kind of wasn’t really getting all this, you know, God stuff, you know, that we do here at the bank. And we don’t force it on anybody. Everything we do, we always tell everybody we don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable. We’re just going to offer uh our faith. Uh, you can offer your faith, you know, if you if you have a different faith, you can offer your faith. I’m not trying to uh tell you what to do or what not to do. I’m just offering my belief because I think it could change your life. And so this particular guy, uh, his father got real sick uh and on an uh international trip and they needed to get him back home and they couldn’t get him back home. They couldn’t, none of the flights were available. And so he reached out to our, we have a prayer team here, and he reached out to the prayer team and asked us to pray for a miracle to our God. I’ll never forget, he said, could you please pray to your God for a miracle for my father? And I’ll be darned if his father didn’t get on a plane the very next day, a seat magically opened up, and his dad got back to Oklahoma City and is still living today. And that young man came in and accepted Jesus uh as his savior. So I’m it’s all kinds of different uh scenarios in which it occurs, and I’m not out, you know, proselytizing my employees and and anointing them with oil. It just it just it just happens. It’s just kind of something that just kind of naturally happens. A lot of people are uh and not to belabor the point here, but you know this, Darren. But a lot of people are really searching for answers. They just that you know, they just are very lost. And so what will happen a lot of times is it it’s a search where somebody’s coming here, man, I’m really struggling with such and such. You know, could you talk to me about that? And a lot of times it leads back to a spiritual conversation, you know, which sometimes leads to them, you know, accepting Jesus as their savior. That seems to be the kind of recurring theme.SPEAKER_00 13:53
Wow. So in most cases, the this is you kind of one-on-one talking with your employees about just life and what’s what’s really, really, really going on, instead of just uh, you know, the the customary, you know, another day in paradise, you know, kind of kind of pleasantries that we exchange when we pass each other at work, but you actually take the time to really go a little deeper and you find out about sick loved ones, you find out about deaths in the family, you find out about people that are really struggling. And that just opens and you just walk through the door.SPEAKER_01 14:35
That’s that’s literally what it is. I also I’ll reach out and something I’ve heard that something’s happened, or they’ve sent a request into the prayer team, and I’ll just reach out and say, Hey, I just want you to know that I I’m praying for you. If I can support you in any way, you know, please let me know. And um maybe they’ll take me up on that and and you know, pop in the door and sit down and say, Hey, yeah, I’m really struggling. I I would love it if you would pray with me, or you know, can you can you help me with this situation that I’m going through? That that’s what is very hard to describe to people is in a in a we call it a 94x environment, but in a faith, in a faith-based work environment, it it goes everything kind of goes to a different level of intimacy. You know, it it just it’s not the same, you just care more deeply. And it just naturally happens. It’s not, it’s so hard to describe, but it’s not even like it’s a strategy. It just is kind of what happens as an outgrowth of bringing Jesus Christ into the workplace. It just, it just, and and and what’s so cool about it is all the other stuff happens as well. Like you, you don’t have, we don’t have very much turnover, you know, and everybody wants to come work here because they’ve heard it’s this really amazing culture and they they want to be loved at work, you know, and they’ve never really felt that. So somebody told them, man, it’s different over there. So we get great employees and then we get great customers. I mean, it just all kind of works together in a really in a in a magical way.SPEAKER_00 16:18
Yeah, and that that prayer ministry is so powerful. My eyes were really open to this. When I was living in New York City, we did a out did an outreach in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City, which is um almost entirely Muslim. And we just set up a uh we just went and asked people if we could pray for them. And we had red vests on. I was with working with a ministry up there, and um basically, how can I pray for you? And so many doors open up. I mean, if I had time, I’d share some of those those stories, but some of the hardest um just I mean, Muslim men that would just I mean, you really intimidating, you know what I mean? You but you go and you ask them to pray, ask them if they need prayer for anything, and next thing you know, this man’s in tears, um, and we’re having tea together. And so it that’s very different than if we would have gone into that neighborhood or if you would have gone into your company with a bullhorn and and started preaching it to everybody and creating a toxic work environment and and all of that. Um I mean, just think about you’re you’re going into somebody’s living room. Um, and and how would you how would you approach that person at that point? That’s probably a good starting point for how we begin to share the gospel with people is find out like what are they struggling with? And I mean, and we have to do this in the workplace, like there is no other way to really truly minister to people because they will just shut they’ll just shut you out. Um, and but so I what I wanted to ask is how do you set up a prayer ministry in your in your company that doesn’t get weird for people?SPEAKER_01 18:09
Yeah, yeah. So uh so first of all, you are right on what when you say I I’ve never really thought about this, Darren, until you just said it. But honestly, the the the prayer is really where it’s all at because very rarely will people turn down being prayed for, you know, that just the offer. And as I always tell everybody, it’s not illegal to offer to pray for somebody, okay? And and our magic, we always say this our magical uh five words, can I pray with you? Those are our with you. Like, let’s pray together right now, not can I pray for you later, you know, when I may or may not remember it. Let’s, you know, I know you’re struggling. You’re telling me about it. Can we can I pray with you today? That that I never thought about it, honestly, until you just said it. That’s the key. I think that’s the key to the whole deal. So here’s what happened. I always try to get up real early and spend time in prayer. And that’s kind of my magical time. Me and Jesus get to hang out, and he’s kind of giving me my lowdown for the day. Well, one morning I was up and I was praying, and I just kind of felt this uh leading that other people in our organization wanted to pray. That’s what I felt like he was basically telling me um, hey, other people want to pray too. You know, you need to give them an opportunity to pray. It’s not just you, it doesn’t have to just be all on you. So I was like, huh. So I I drive in and I literally, here’s how simple it was. I literally get to this desk right here. I go into my email, I send a bank wide email out, and it just says a prayer team. And I just said, hey, everybody, you know, I feel like we may have some people in our company that would like to pray for others. There’s no pressure here, but if you would like to join me in a prayer team, you know, we’ll pray for anybody that needs it. Our employees, clients, communities, shareholders, etc. And about 80 people took me up on that.SPEAKER_00 20:17
And so, and at the time, you know, they want prayer or they want to pray for people. They want to pray for people. They were they were 80 out of 100 people.SPEAKER_01 20:26
Uh how many people? No, probably a double, probably had 160 or so at that time. Yeah, yeah. This has only been a couple of years ago. So uh probably 150, 160 at the time. So let’s say half roughly of our employees signed up. Well, so what we did was we created a an email, and I didn’t know if people would take us up on this or not. All I’m I’m just going one step at a time. So we set up an email and it’s it’s prayer team at regent.bank, and literally any one of your listeners or viewers can email us at prayer team at regent.bank, and we all get it, you know, at instantly. And then we pray together on Wednesday mornings. Uh the prayer team does. Uh, our internal auditor, amazingly, leads our prayer team. Uh, she is a prayer warrior, she tracks all of the uh results of our prayers. Last year we had 157 answered prayers uh that we know of, many of which we would consider miracles. And it is really that simple. So, I mean, we have hundreds of prayer requests. I mean hundreds. In a given day, I might have 15 pop up in my email. But again, hey guys, please pray for such and such is sick or such and such is baby is, you know, having some difficulties or, you know, whatever. And so that’s that’s what it looks like. It it literally is that simple. We was set up in a day. We had the things set up in one day, we were praying for people the next day, and we’ve been doing it. Now for you know probably two and a half or three years. And uh probably the co it might be the coolest thing that we do is the as a prayer team.SPEAKER_00 22:09
Yeah. I mean, what’s more powerful than than prayer? So in in doing this for two and a half, three years, like have you run into any problems in in doing this? Or um like what are some lessons learned that people can can take as as they’re thinking about applying this in their own companies? Yeah. I mean, did you have your did you have to have your uh your attorneys look over the the model before you send it out? Because I’m sitting here wondering, like, how do you end up with a company where half of your uh employees want to step up and be intercessory prayer uh ministers for the media?SPEAKER_01 23:02
Yeah, you just ask them, you know. I mean, the the deal is, and and this is what is so important, I shand, and I know you know this, but for your viewers, the really important thing for people to understand is you can offer, okay? You can offer, you just cannot require. Yeah. So, what is so misunderstood, even by me, I I thought it was illegal to bring your faith into your business. I really did. I thought, uh, you know, I thought, well, we’ll get sued and you know, blah, blah. It’s not, it’s very clear, actually, in the uh Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it you can bring here’s here’s kind of the way that it works. If if you offer your faith to people in a workplace setting, then other people have to be able to offer their faith. Okay. You just have to be consistent. If you put a Bible on your desk, then they have to be able to put a Quran or whatever on their desk. Okay, it’s not, it’s not, and you cannot put people in a situation where they feel like you are forcing them to pray, worship, or whatever your way. But what you can do is offer. And so if you think about this prayer team, I offered if anybody wanted to join. Nobody was forced. And I’m real big on, you know, I’m not nobody’s forced. You’re not gonna get promoted if you do this stuff, you’re not gonna get demoted if you don’t. I love you the same. Okay, it’s it’s up to you. But, you know, so I offered them to join the prayer team. We offered to pray for them if they need something, but never at any point is anybody forced to do anything, you know? And a lot of times, like people, they may want prayer, but maybe they don’t want to go that public, you know, with what they’re maybe they don’t want to go to 80 people with what’s going on. So that’s what a lot of times maybe they’ll they’ll come in here or to another prayer team member and they just pray one-on-one. Well, that’s fantastic. I mean, we you know, we’re not trying to make a production out of it, we’re just trying to give them an avenue uh to be able to, if they if they need support and they need prayer, we want to be there uh for them.SPEAKER_00 25:13
So yeah, and there’s I’m sure it’s there’s probably an issue with um confidentiality where they might feel like they there’s certain things they can’t share. Like if they’re if they if they feel like they’re they’re having um, you know, just uh a mental illness, and probably that’s something that would be hard to share with an employer, I would think, right?SPEAKER_01 25:40
Yeah, we don’t get a lot of those types of requests from inside. Now we do outside, people from outside of the organization will send in, you know, people we don’t even know uh have heard about the prayer team and will send in those types of requests. We got internally, it’s typically, you know, physical sickness, physical illness, um, you know, just going through a really tough time. They lost their father, mother, and they’re just needing support. They’re pretty mainstream. But man, you would be amazed. I I kind of thought, yeah, nobody’s gonna send in a prayer request, you know, because they’re not gonna want people to know their business. We have hundreds of them, hundreds. I mean, so it’s pretty amazing what people do. I think they I think they have learned over time that we’re we’re all in this for a very pure reason, and that is to support them. You know, nobody, we’re not, it’s not the gossip train where you know we’re using their information against them in any way. And so uh it’s amazing what I mean, people are pretty open.SPEAKER_00 26:43
So you basically have an inbox, prayer team at regentbank.com. And so if I’m a if I’m one of those 80 intercessors, I have access to that inbox and just sort of on demand, I can go in there, see what some requests are, and then correct uh add those to my prayer list.SPEAKER_01 27:04
Yes, and it and it is it’s a little confusing. It’s it’s prayer team at regent.bank is actually the address is if anybody is interested. And literally the way we have it set up is it pops up in your email feed in the middle of the day, like you’re just working and boom, prayer request, and it’ll it’ll lay out. So you just I typically just stop right there and go, Lord, I just want to pray for such and such. You know, obviously you can set up a rule and we encourage that if that hey, if it’s bothering you, because there’s some days there’s a lot of them. So we’ll say, Hey, just set up a rule to put it all into a folder and maybe go in at the end of the day, you know, and pray or over lunch or whatever. And that’s up to each individual employee, but yeah, they’re popping up uh for us right into our um all the prayer team members’ inboxes in real time.SPEAKER_00 27:51
Okay, so it’s it’s not on demand, it’s coming at you. Uh okay, that’s great.SPEAKER_01 27:57
That’s great. I had three this morning before we got on the call. Wow. So I mean, it’s just I mean, they’re it’s all it’s all the time. It’s really cool. It’s this is really incredible.SPEAKER_00 28:08
Well, with the time we have remaining here, um, Sean, I want to ask you about the 94x movement because I know our listeners have been sitting there since the beginning of the episode wondering what is 94x? So lay it on us.SPEAKER_01 28:21
Yeah, I I’ve gone through entire speeches where I failed to explain what 94x is. We’re like, where’d you come up with that? So 94x is a is a kind of a I don’t I vision is a strong word, but two numbers that came to me one day when I was on a plane ride and I closed my eyes. The Lord, I felt like had called me into this kind of faith at work, you know, mission field. And I felt like he was saying, Hey, you need to go show people what you’ve what you’ve got here at Regent. They need to be able to do this at their companies. And so I closed my eyes and I was like, okay, what does this look like? And the two were the two numbers that popped in in my uh mind were 160 over 1.7, and 160 is the number of hours that our employees work in a month, and 1.7 is the number of hours that they go to church on average in a month. And the point was that we even those that go to church, which is not a very super large percentage, but even of those that go to church, they’re here 94 times more than they go in the walls of their church. And so what the Lord showed me was hey, the reason I put you in these positions of authority wasn’t so you could make a bunch of money and buy a bunch of junk. It was so you would be a shepherd to my people. And so that’s where 94X was born. And so uh 94X uh is very narrow, it’s probably the world’s most narrow ministry. Okay, it’s not a leadership development, it’s not, it only exists to answer two questions. One, can you bring your faith into your business? So are we do tons of outreach and marketing and you know, social media and blah, blah, blah, to let Christian business leaders know that they can, that it is legal, kind of like we’ve talked about here. And then number two, if they want to do that, how do I do it? And so we have studied hundreds of businesses, looked at what they’ve done to bring their faith. And it’s all different, it’s always different. It’s very cool. You know, what we’ve done here is very different than Chick-fil-A or Hobby Lobby or Coca-Cola Consolidated or, you know, uh ISTI across the street, which is a very faith-based business. It’s all different. And so what we want to do is just be a resource and say, hey, here’s some ideas, here’s some things that could work for you. Uh, we have round tables. We’re very, very close, I mean, literally days from launching a uh kind of a subscription-based membership. And in that, uh, we have built out a digital platform called 94X University that every member will have full access to. And they can go on and it basically lays out all the stuff. What does the law say about bringing your faith in? What does the Bible say? What are the principles of a faith-based business? So you’ve got access to all that. Uh, I’m partnering up with uh, you may have heard of uh Nick Voyache. Uh Nick is the really famous evangelist, no arms and no legs. He has become a best friend of mine, and so he is my partner in 94x. And so we’re gonna offer an hour a month uh with he and I every other month, where you can really dig in on spiritual growth. We’re gonna offer a uh a day a year, a full day in person with us for all of our members. And so uh it’s we’re super, super excited. And the goal is to go global. We want to we want every Christian business leader in the world to just know that they can bring their faith in. Now, I will say we’ve learned in some countries it’s a little riskier uh than others, but in most countries, as long as you don’t require it, it’s it’s uh it’s legal. So you can’t bring your faith in and how to do that. That’s our goal, is to is to blanket the blanket the world uh with this with this uh message. So that’s basically what 94x uh is.SPEAKER_00 32:23
And 94xmovement.com is the website. Anything you want to say to folks about next steps they can take, just go to the website, sign up.SPEAKER_01 32:33
Yeah, love to love to have them come check it out. And again, you know, we are we are here to serve. So we have a book called 94x that they can that they can uh get. And again, if they’ll if they’ll if they want to come sign up uh on our website, then we can let them know when we’re ready to launch our new membership, uh, which I think is going to be very, very popular. And we are super, super excited about that. So, but there’s even without that, they don’t have to, they don’t have to do a membership, they don’t have to do anything on the website for free. There are tons and tons and tons of resources and examples and uh videos from our summits that we have had. You know, we’re we’re we’re not trying to be a profit engine. We are trying to get the Lord into businesses. We believe it is the great uh mission field, as I know you do too. So that that’s the that’s the goal.SPEAKER_00 33:33
And regarding Regent Bank, uh Sean, we’ve had at least one person who has told me they’ve listened to this podcast and switched banks because of the guest that they heard um who was who was running a a Christ-centered bank. Um what do you want to say to people about how they can um potentially start banking with with Regent?SPEAKER_01 33:55
Well, if if you go to Regent.bank, what you will see is, you know, what we’re talking about here is is very real. Okay. This is not a we have a we have a faith-based resource section on our website. We have our core purpose on our website, which is to show God’s love to our employees, clients, and communities. We’re not, this is not a marketing ploy. This is really who we are. And all I think I would say is we would welcome anybody if they want to kind of bank with somebody that shares their values. We would love to have them. If if you’re, you know, if if you’re not located near us, I’ll help you find a bank that shares your values. We’re not the only one. We may be the most overt um out there, but there are a lot of great Christian-owned banks and credit unions uh all over the country. Uh I just got uh debanked. Um, I will tell you this, this is just wild to me. But Nick and I are partners in a new uh uh it’s a fintech, it’s called uh ProLife FinTech. Yeah, I’ve heard of this. Yeah. And so he he and he he launched it. He and uh Betsy Gray launched it, and we figured out a way that we could be their sponsor bank and help them get it off the ground. So I’m on the board uh with them. And about uh two weeks ago, uh we get a message that our bank account has been shut down. And there is literally no reason why that would occur. I mean, the only transactions were some wires going in from investors, money being paid to the staff, and money being paid to the software company to build out the platform. That’s it. There, nothing nefarious, nothing. And so I would say this, and I feel very, very strongly about this. You know, if if you have a listener that is ever gets debaned, you know, the bank closes their account down. And it and we get two or three a week where people will reach out to us and say, I don’t know why, but I got a message from my bank that I was too risky and I have to move my banking. We welcome them to come here. One thing I do want to be is a refuge for people of all beliefs, it’s not just not just Christian, you know, we’re not, we’re just not going to shut your account down because of some political or faith view that you have, or because you have a gun range or you uh are in coal production. You know, I mean, we’re not that’s not our role. We are here to serve you. We’re not here to judge based upon are you is are you doing the right thing or not? And so if anybody needs that, please reach out. Just go to Regent.bank. You’re always welcome to call me. Uh, my email, which I’m I’m happy to share here, is just S-Copelin, S-K-O-U-P-L-E-N at Regent.bank. They can come to me directly. Love to love to help if that ever ever happens.SPEAKER_00 37:00
Okay. Well, thank you for that, Sean. Um, this has been a fantastic interview. I I know that I’ve been encouraged and informed. 94xmovement.com and Regent.bank are the websites uh for everyone to go and check out. Sean, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom and your heart with us today. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Theology of Business podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and tune in for the next episode as we continue exploring God’s will and ways for business.
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