Andy Mason (00:01.454)
Hey, welcome to The Conversation. You're with Andy Mason, and this is the Heaven in Business podcast where we help you navigate the messy intersection of faith, family, and business. And did you know that there is a resurgence of people in the United States reading the Bible? But shout out, it's not old people, it's not middle-aged people, it's actually Gen Z. I think that's kind of younger than 25. There's a 30 % increase, or 29 % exactly.
increased from the Barna Group in terms of that generation that are Bible curious, that are seeking out what is this all about? And so shout out to you if you're actually reading the Bible more than you were a couple of years ago. But I thought it just be really important in all that we do and we lead, if I am a follower of Jesus, if you are a follower of Jesus, that you say that Jesus is center of your life.
business, that you a faith-centered business person, a kingdom-driven business entrepreneur, and you don't read the Bible? I would question your statement. Why? Because Revelation says that the name of Jesus is literally the Word of God. How could I be a kingdom-centered, faith-driven entrepreneur, and if I'm not anchored in the Word of God that is informing my life? So what I believe and what I'm hearing is that
You and I, we wanna do this. We wanna have the Bible central to our lives. We often don't know how. So what I wanna do for you today is give you a little bit of my personal journey with the Word of God and then invite you into a personal rhythm of how you can do the same. And what we're doing is I've got a friend, Coach Bill. He's just sold his business for multiple millions. He has built a 40 year lifetime. Well, that's not.
that's part of a lifetime, but a business career anchored in the word of God from a semi-professional launching into boxing to quitting that, stepping into family business, exiting that, and then stepping into his own company in the ups and the downs, the real life journey of engaging with God in real time, in real life, in a business context. How do you read the Bible as a business person? How do you develop a rhythm to do that?
Andy Mason (02:26.414)
That's what gonna invite you in. You can see the links below. Jump onto heavenandbusiness.com slash word dash at dash work. And you can sign up for that free 30 day rhythm that we're gonna give you. If you cannot be on the live calls, do not let that hold you back. You can get the recordings and it's gonna really help you unpack and develop a real time rhythm in the word of God that will inform you. In our day.
It's a big, big deal, why? Because scripture says, in the last days, and we've been in the last day since Jesus was resurrected, in the last days, many will fall away. The love of many will grow cold. Many will be deceived. So how do you prevent that from happening to you? Well, I'd say one of the most important things is anchoring your life in the word of God and letting that inform
the daily decisions, the way that you live. That's number one. Number two is making sure that you have live, real people around you, community, a community of believers. You will be so affected by the people that you hang around the most. So it's really, important that we engage locally, in person, with real people, and then obviously being supported online. We can provide the online piece for you. We can provide the in-person at events.
We're doing a marriage retreat in Cancun this weekend, but that's only like 20 people. We're doing an upcoming conference in Dallas at the end of August, but that's only gonna be 150 people. There's so much more of you and not all of you can make it to that. So really encourage you the word of God and having live people around you. Find a people, build that, cultivate it in your life. So my life, how have I developed a lifestyle?
Firstly, what does it look like today? And then how did this develop to what it is today? Because there's been so many different ups and downs and sideways in regard to my personal journey with the Word of God, who is named Jesus. So today, that pretty much looks like at least an hour a day, reading, meditating, journaling, thinking, pondering, processing, interacting with different devices, as in I've got the Word of God, I've got my journal.
Andy Mason (04:45.772)
I've got a little AI tool that helps me and just pulls in definitions, Hebrew, Greek words. I've developed it out as a custom GPT that gives Biblically parametered, anchored advice that just brings all of the different things in together. The Bible Gateway, Bible.com, Blue Letter Bible, we support them. And that just brings and helps me unpack things in a historical cultural context. And I'm loving it.
probably the most fruitful time in the Word of God is now. It's very, very infrequent that a day goes by where I'm not moved by what I'm reading. Now, it hasn't always been like that. It's been up and down the sideways. There's been seasons where it's been incredibly dry, but there's been something that I've just built in my life over time. And I'm gonna unpack a little bit of that story for you and then obviously tell you more about this rhythm.
that we're giving to you to help you build this in your own life. So let's go back in time a little bit. Way, way back now, I'm 52 years old, but I grew up in a family where my parents became followers of Jesus when I was really young. I say it was because of my brother. You know, they needed help parenting. And so they found Jesus because of a parenting course. And obviously that's benefited all of us. And my brother turned out pretty good by the way. So that's pretty cool.
So for me, I just remember we went to these brethren. A brethren would be like Southern Baptist in the States. I was in New Zealand, my older brother, youngest sister, mom and dad. And we went to, I think like an Anglican church, a start of a Church of Christ or something. But somehow when we were in a different location, we started to go to this Christian Bible Crusade summer camps. And they had prizes for memorizing scripture, prizes for
knowing different aspects of the Bible. And I just wanted the prize. I didn't care about the memorization, but I wanted to win. like, you know this, you're the same. So I just would do these things and memorize scripture, memorize the books of the Bible. But I realized after that, it's kind of like the first one is free, and then you can do more. Well, I did more. I think her name was Aunt Mavis. I didn't even know who the person was.
Andy Mason (07:12.462)
This is like before email people. I would do these Bible studies and curriculum where like I'm probably 10, 11, 12 years old and doing these things that I'm looking back now thinking what young man ever does these? What I did must have been the grace of God and praying parents. Maybe my mom was like, Jesus help this young man. That was probably so shout out. Thank you, mom. But whoever that Aunt Mavis was,
She would send me these physical Bible studies to do and we would go through different things and I'd win things like a Bible dictionary. Like really? Yet something in me wanted to do this. Well, now I can look back, it gave a foundation. I went from there and I've had these different people speak into my lives and shape me. Somehow I stumbled over these cassette tapes by a guy by the name of Robert Slyarden.
and they were called God's Generals and there were stories of these revivalists and people like Peter Cartwright who rode a horse and would do circuit riding in the United States in I think the 1700s. It was wild. And he rode this, he's a big man, then it says he carried a Bible and a gun and he knew how to use both. Well these stories of people that I heard of
also gripped me. What's the difference between them? I want to be, I want to be somebody like that, like a circuit rider. You can use a gun and a Bible. And so I started to read. Well, when I left school, so I'm like 18, 17, I'm on a big cadet ship. So there's 20 boys, 17, 18, 19 year olds, just think modern day rednecks, Duck Dynasty, New Zealand version. And it was rough, not a Christian environment.
And so it was the first place where it was very unsheltered, exposed to drugs, alcohol, porn, all of those things. And yet I made a choice. I want to go deeper into God. And you know, I had no grid, no framework for this. So what did that look like? Well, there was a couple of things that really, really helped. One of them was mum. Mum sending me a little like A5 type.
Andy Mason (09:36.706)
booklet called Every Day with Jesus. It was a devotional and it's like literally one page, like very, I mean, I would say now shallow, but at the time that was like life giving for me. So one, had that number two. So then I'd read the Bible or read a proportion, like a small piece. And I started to read things like where I'd read the scripture, my enemies lay traps for me and fallen themselves. And then,
that would be that day or that week, the guys would want to, it's like make fun of the Christian dude. And they would set up these traps for me to try and put me in the sump and the dairy shed, which you don't want to know about that. But it's like I would see it coming. And I was the, played rugby, I was the winger, so I'm fast and strong. And I'd see it coming. And I'd be just laughing, running away because the traps, like it just, it just eventuated to nothing.
Well, time and time again, I'd see the Word of God and what He said, and I'd see it happen in my life in that day. Fast forward 20 years, I'm climbing a mountain in Zimbabwe. That morning I read, God belong escapes from death. Thinking, why do I need to know that scripture? Well, that day I just about fell off the mountain, and yet this Word of God has anchored me and become so real. So that was just such a helpful shift in shape. I go from there to university.
and I'm reading the Word. I am connecting with a pastor, Bob Hamilton, shout out to you, where we would meet together and he'd talk about the Word of God. So I had people around my life that I'm so grateful for, which is why we wanna do this for you. So you can't say nobody's done this for you, because you've got access to this right now, and we're giving it to you. Sign up, heavenandbusiness.com slash word dash at dash work. And we're gonna walk through and give you this rhythm. So I had that.
And then I had this couple that I stayed with, Brian and Pauline Martis in Christchurch while I was at university doing agricultural science. Well, this wonderful couple, they both encouraged me in what we were doing. I'd pray in their home, I'd be reading my Bible, be leading the youth, be going to different churches, just hungry for more of God. And after staying with them for a couple of years, I think it was, they gave me a gift.
Andy Mason (12:02.158)
of a Bible dictionary, not like the kids version, but like a big hefty, and that I still have today, which I'm thinking, part of me is like, who does this? But so grateful and a shout out to them because that has shaped my life and encouraged me in the way I should go. You know, if you're listening and watching this right now, there's people all around you that have, maybe that's interns, maybe that's somebody that you are mentoring.
Well, have you thought about, rather than just give them the latest leadership book, get a high quality leather cover, passion translation book of Psalms or Proverbs, or get them a Bible dictionary, get them something physical and real. There's literally a there's a business Bible, which is literally the Bible, but it's got added things and how it relates to Bible. I'm gonna see if I can find that and put that in the link before you. It's a lot more expensive, but high value, high quality.
physical gift that you can give people. Those things in the past shaped and anchored my life and helped me go in the right direction. And we could do that for one another and a generation that around us are jumping at this. So what if we helped feed that hunger for the word of God? So that shaped me, these Every Day with Jesus, Bible dictionaries that I get given, which is hilarious. And then we moved to, and then I, so graduate.
I moved to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand and plugged into a little church there. Well, not so little, 500 people. Pastor, or the senior leader was Mike Connell. You can actually find him online, Mike Connell Ministries. And he has got like hundreds of resources, of notes, of Bible questions and commentaries. There's so much depth of teaching, because he's a teacher. Like that would be his gifting.
He was actually a principal and a teacher in a school, and he's brought that gifting into what he does. And so I got to be a part of that church, walking with him in a small group where we would unpack scripture. And the biggest thing that I gained from him was curiosity of this approach to the Bible to ask questions. What was that? What does it mean? Why would that be? Who else in the Bible? And just keep asking questions.
Andy Mason (14:25.198)
and then take those questions and see if you can answer them through the scriptures. We did a course there on how to use a concordance. What is a concordance? That's when you see all those cross references through the Bible. How to apply that? What is a commentary? And so I learned some things through the local church of how to read the Bible, how to unpack, how to study the Bible. And I was taught by somebody that's been
decades doing that and teaching all over the world, not just the information of the Bible, but the lived out experience of here's what Jesus did, now let's demonstrate it. Here's what healing Jesus did, let's demonstrate. Here's deliverance, now let's demonstrate. That's Pastor Mike Connell, and you can see those resources online. That was just so valuable. What else did I do at the time? I started reading the Bible cover to cover. There is something about reading the whole book in its entirety.
You know, someone could take this recording of me and take a clip out of it and skew that to say something that I had no content or desire because they're taking it out of context of the whole. It's the same with the Word of God. It's so important to read from Genesis right through to Revelation. It starts at a garden with a plan of God to walk with man, to give you a choice that you wouldn't just be a robot, but you would choose him.
and we chose poorly, independence and sin came into the world. But it follows through the story of people trying to get their own way back to God, but the self was at the core of it and religion doesn't work. And the bottom line is, it's impossible of yourself to gain any form of righteousness. But this journey, finally Jesus comes and models what it's like to walk in full union with God. And then again, we still have choice and he releases the Holy Spirit so we can now do this.
because of not our righteousness, but his, flows right through the book of Revelation, where Jesus finally comes back, destroys sin, shame, brokenness, tears, crying, restores the earth unto the original standard, and we get to live as God intended right from the beginning. The whole thing is there. Everything feeds and weaves together, but if you've never read the whole, you miss the context of the whole thing. That's so important. So reading the Bible.
Andy Mason (16:50.54)
I've got a friend in Reading, California, she gave us a chronological Bible. She reads this with her husband or her husband reads it to her every single night. Well, you don't need a chronological Bible. You've got the Bible yourself. You can just read it. In the United States, average per household, 4.4 Bibles. Did you know that? And there's people around other places around the world that don't have a single Bible in their own language. So, hey, we've got no excuse.
So cover to cover Redding the Chronological Bible, I talked about that. Learning from teachers like Bill Johnson, we went from New Zealand to Redding California, and went through a ministry school. It is not a seminary, it's a vocational school. So it's like, it's not the, not a heavy Bible, Bible, Bible, it's more how do you live this out, pray for the sick and so on. Now what I know about Bill Johnson, rubbing shoulders with him personally,
His love and depth and engagement in the Word of God is, I have yet to experience a preacher like it, who would just read one passage of scripture for four years in addition to everything else, and then stand up, and if anybody's experienced his teaching, you'd be like, wow, this is not just information, but this is someone that walks in relationship with the God of the Bible. This is someone that has a sincere.
walk with God that is real, that is true. Don't believe everything you read online. Find the person and what they have actually done and check that out for yourself. Well, that shaped me because he would just read and read and read and read and read and that's informed what he's done. So it's not just I read it and then I go to work, but no, I want to read it and now give us this day our daily bread. So what I'm reading on a daily basis is informing.
and is feeding me throughout the day. That's what's so important. What else did I do is I did a St. Ignatius spiritual exercises. Now people freaking out, what is that? Well, the Catholics and all of us were Catholics before the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. So the Christian church was the Catholic church and they've got some really, really, really good resources that help.
Andy Mason (19:13.326)
people unpack and understand the Bible. So all of the Christian fathers, Catholics, all of them. So you people freaking out about Catholics? No, no. There's such a depth of Christian history throughout the world. Have leaders made mistakes? Absolutely. And you and I have made mistakes. But we did this St. Ignatius spiritual exercises and profound.
in terms of slowing down, walking with a spiritual director, the footsteps of Jesus through the Word and what it taught me, actually I had to get a thing at the end of it to kind of illustrate what's the one thing I learned. I got this sign, please slow down. Why? Because that was the biggest thing I learned from doing that is I'm going way too fast. If I treated the Word of God as a person, I wouldn't just read through and stop.
I would interact the whole way through it, slow down, engage, open up, communicate and dialogue. That's what I learned through that, which is also really helpful. And you can find out more of those things online. So that's what I do. Current, I've talked about it right now, is I use all sorts of different things. Did you know there's the Bible Project? They have like videos that are eight to 15 minutes long on each book of the Bible.
It's on YouTube, you can use that, you can apply that to your life. I'm constantly leaning and looking, journaling and reflecting has been such a key. As I slow down and I write out what's the verse that I'm reading? And then something happens when I go from thought to write it out. And it's just, again, it's that process of slowing down. It unpacks, it gives revelation, wisdom. And then I'm saying, how, what is God saying to me today?
From what I'm reading, how does that inform my life? And again and again and again, you read or listen back over these blogs, back in over these podcasts, you hear and see that the Word of God is informing what we do. We've just actually redone in our entire, we actually set it up for the first time on heavenandbusiness.com what we believe. Why? It's like a statement of faith. Because it's so important, because there's so many things growing so squarely.
Andy Mason (21:35.564)
I wanna make sure that am I anchored in the word of God, which is a person. So I'm inviting you to join us on this 30 day rhythm with Coach Bill and myself. It's kicking off in the middle of May. You can find out more heaveninbusiness.com slash word dash at dash work. Make sure you get that. It will help you grow in the word. If you say, don't wanna do that, I just want one thing. One, get yourself a Bible and read it.
if you're not sure where to start, Uversion has great little plans. Again, it's free for you online. There is no excuse. If you're an English speaker in the Western world, you've got so many resources in ValiBeauty right now, but it takes starting and walking and unpacking and leaning into it, knowing that even on a bad day, even when there's nothing and it feels so dry,
it'll be feeding you something that you don't even realize. And it could be months or years later that it comes out. I don't want to just have a Bible that informs me, but it's a person that I'm walking with and growing in relationship with. So I just pray for you, a fresh passion and desire and a hunger for the word of God that would just not leave you, that would stir you, that you come back to it. You wouldn't better wait to wake up in the morning and read the word.
and you're not reading the word for information or a sermon or some instruction for somebody else, but you're reading it because you wanna grow in personal relationship with the word and how he is leading and guiding and establishing you. I pray that the word of God would be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. I pray that you would personally know the word and you would abide and dwell and remain in him that his commands
would be your commission, then you'd walk in relationship and you would see around you this fruit that remains.
