Heavenly Minded Earthly Good

Anita Wing Lee 00:00
I don't want to do this anymore. I was tired of creating content for the internet. After nine months of the pandemic onslaught of work and doing class from online, walking loops around the same neighborhood, I felt creatively depleted. And I had felt that way for a long time. It's why I had gone ahead with those new projects in Guatemala and Jamaica. I work better in cycles. But in the Western world, there are no cycles. It was one thing after another constantly, I was running multiple social media accounts, multiple websites and multiple campaigns. And even though I'm someone with a lot of ideas, if my tank was running dry, if I really hit the bottom, it wouldn't be replenished for several months, or maybe even a year or two. So when the break between Christmas and New Year's, at the end of 2021, I got that feeling that I had always feared. Since I was a student. It was the reason I feared office jobs. I had the gnawing feeling that I didn't want to go to work.

Anita Wing Lee 01:22
Even though I worked in a church, this place that used to feel like a gift from God. I didn't want to do this anymore. Thankfully, God had put a pasture in my backyard. Sonya Tetley, my friend and neighbor that we heard from an episode 9. 99% of the time, she was just my friend. But on this particular occasion, I was so glad that she was also a pastor. It was a snowy winter day, and I was back at my computer in my kitchen, doing work for the church, but struggling with this feeling that I didn't want to do this anymore. Sonya happened to swing by and I welcomed her in through the back door, where our backyards were connected. We sat in front of the fireplace and talked. I assumed that God wanted me to stay in this job at this church because it was the church. Isn't this the way that we serve God? Sonia gave me permission to listen to my feelings. It's okay to feel like this.

Anita Wing Lee 02:30
Maybe this is a sign from God. There's a part of you that senses you've hit a ceiling. Do you feel like there's nowhere left to grow? She gave me permission to listen to that feeling of anxiety and not push it away. It had more weight coming from Sonya because she was a pastor. Instantly I got the sense that oh, okay. If this feeling might be from God, then my Holy Spirit hunches as I like to call it would say my time is up. There is a ceiling that my intuition senses have hit. So when do I get to leave this month, next month? nine months. The number just dropped in me.

Anita Wing Lee 03:25
Tyndale University presents Heavenly Minded Earthly Good. Deconstruction is the word commonly used for the process of critically dissecting your Christian beliefs.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 03:36
For some in the church deconstruction is kind of the new bad word backsliding or apostasy or heresy.

Anita Wing Lee 03:44
Churches tend to assume that deconstruction is an intellectual issue. But it's intertwined with all these other layers of what makes us human.

Dr. Helen Noh 03:52
What makes up a person is things like their cognitive layers, their emotional layers, their behavioral layers and their relational layers.

Anita Wing Lee 04:00
This podcast follows my personal journey through deconstruction. Along the way, we're going to chat with professors, pastors, psychologists, researchers, historians and artists.

Tara Jean Stevens 04:12
But I was still really struggling with the fact that if I was wrong, I might be going to hell.

Anita Wing Lee 04:21
We'll explore the questions so many of us have about Christianity. The stuff you probably didn't feel comfortable bringing up on Sunday at youth group or small group. I'm your host and guide for this journey. And Anita Wing Lee.

Anita Wing Lee 04:39
Nine months would take me to September 2021. Nine months was also how long it takes to incubate a baby. And I needed time to incubate whatever was next because I had no idea. My old pattern when I was traveling was that when I started to feel uncomfortable in a particular location, I would figure out my next move and leave. So I knew that I wasn't just going to jet because I wasn't happy at this job anymore. I wanted to stay, stick it out, learn everything I was supposed to contribute everything I was supposed to, and leave only when God said it was time.

Anita Wing Lee 05:19
Every once in a while I'd scroll through job boards online. But nothing looked interesting to me. Every time I scrolled through, I felt God saying, What are you doing? Stop wasting your time looking. You can look for research. But this is not how it's going to come to you. If you apply early, and you end up in the wrong job, and EDA, you'll be even worse off. Wait, just wait. I told you nine months. And that feeling of nine months never went away. So I hung on to it. I had no idea what was next. But it gave me hope that something was coming. God doesn't always speak to me this clearly plopping a pastor in my house, and giving me numbers that just feel right. But this time he didn't.

Anita Wing Lee 06:23
I made a pact with God. I will not apply to anything until September 30, 2021. If nothing comes by that date, then God I'm going to take human action and apply to things. But until September 30, I had this feeling that God was going to bring me this next job a different way. Throughout my life, I had gotten all kinds of work in different ways. It was rarely through a conventional application. Even the job at the church felt like I was the person meant for this. So it didn't make sense for me to randomly and sporadically spread my resume everywhere. If God had proven that he could bring me a job in the past. In June 2021, only six months from that conversation with Sonya. My other contract job with a Christian digital media company offered me a full time role. It was being the news director of a Christian radio station. From Joy Radio news in Toronto. I'm Anita Wing Lee.

Anita Wing Lee 07:33
It was cool to be on the radio. But I quickly realized that this job had a lot of repetition. I was doing newscasts over and over again. And a part of me was nervous. I don't know how long and Anita is going to last doing a repetitive task. But it looked like God had delivered on his nine month promise early. A few weeks later, an email dropped in my inbox from Tyndale University, inviting students to something called the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor Conference. What is this?

Anita Wing Lee 08:13
The conference was presented by something called Tyndale center for redemptive entrepreneurship. What? Tyndale, a Christian university and Seminary is doing something with entrepreneurship? When I was a student in business school, I got very involved with the social entrepreneurship scene at the school, I took all the courses on sustainability, I met dozens of social entrepreneurs. And if I hadn't ventured into the world of being an online creator, I would have gone to work for a social enterprise.

Anita Wing Lee 08:51
Social entrepreneurship is the idea of building a business that is a force for good in society. A business that cares not just about making a profit, but also the people and the planet. But when Montenegro happened, and I came back to Toronto, and then especially when I ended up with a job at Catch The Fire Church, I let the entrepreneur in me die. My job at the church was at the bottom rung of the organization. And I felt so broken, there was no way I was going to start a business. I had seen how much damage the entrepreneur in me had done to myself. And I felt responsible for all of this content I put online that I wasn't even sure was good. So I was happy to let the entrepreneur in me die. But what is redemptive entrepreneurship? This is Philip Yan, an entrepreneur and the director of the Center for redemptive entrepreneurship at Tyndale. I asked him What does business have to do with God?

Phillip Yan 09:59
I think God has everything to do about business. Right from the beginning, I will say, the whole so called business things came from God, because it was God to say, you have to work. That's part of the DNA. That's how he created us. And so when we work as a person, then is this work. But when we work as a community, that work will start to become business, because it needs to tray, you need to interact, you need to support. So I would say business actually came from God.

Anita Wing Lee 10:42
Whoa, I had never thought of it that way. By the time I tiptoed into the business world in my early 20s, I assumed that God doesn't care about the things of this world. Our world was messed up, God has left us to our own devices, just like he left me to my own. And it was up to us to fix this world. And I wanted to be part of the solution. So I gravitated towards business and social entrepreneurship, because it seemed like the way to make things in the world better. But redemptive entrepreneurship, is a different take on this. It smashes the world of God, and the world of business into something more beautiful. Here's how Philip explains redemptive entrepreneurship,

Phillip Yan 11:33
What is redemptive? That's the point, I would say, the fact that we are in a broken world, and something that we cannot avoid. So business are very exploitative. Because we sell, we sell high buy low, and we try to maximize our profit. And that seems to be the norm of the overall business. And because of that, we exploit people, we exploit system, we exploit many things that we can, that's part of the world that we're living in. So we talked about ethic code, that can be a way that looking at something fairness, because it will need to be thinking beyond just I'm winning, but also about other people as well. So when we think about fairness, and we think about you when I went together, that it become a better system. But unfortunately, our system doesn't deal with the brokenness of this world. Because the fairness it doesn't deal with the ethical issues. only deal with the basic fairness, trading, and, and so on. That's why we need a different way to look at it. That's actually what God's way. It's about God's way is willing to sacrifice to create, and restore with new things, so that the world will become better place. And in fact, that's actually part of the ecosystem that got created from the very beginning,

Anita Wing Lee 13:07
Redemptive entrepreneurship, not social entrepreneurship. But something beyond it. It was an even higher, nobler, braver way. A way that may only be possible with God. So I bought a student ticket to this conference, I showed up as a student, but I also came as a former failed entrepreneur, or a creator on hiatus in dormancy. At work. I never really like to use the part of me that wanted to bring entire visions to life. I usually felt like I just worked on little pieces of someone else's creation. But I figured the part of me that could bring entire visions to life. She was a bit out of control. So I let myself be smaller at work, and quieter. And I figured it was healing. I met Phillip Yan for the first time at the booth for the Center for redemptive entrepreneurship at the conference, chatting with him at his table, I found out just how long the center had been in the planning stages. Five years,

Phillip Yan 14:25
Even though we formed the Center for Redemptive Entrepreneurship last year, but the whole idea and the journey started five years ago.

Anita Wing Lee 14:35
People had been talking to Tyndale leadership, dreaming and visioning challenging planning a center for redemptive entrepreneurship for five years. It was a little delayed because of the pandemic. But it was only now that they were having their first big event. And here I was, in my third year of my master's program, just pass the halfway point of the four year program. It felt like God had timed the whole thing just for me to discover the center. Here was a group of people, business people, leaders, who had been thinking about what it means to be a builder and entrepreneur, and a follower of Jesus, at the same time, and they had been thinking about this for much longer. I was just discovering it. I felt like God had orchestrated all of this just for me. It seems so ironic. Here I was a student at seminary, which traditionally prepared people to be pastors. Instead, God was using seminary to show me that his heart was to restore the world, not to produce more pastors. Living my life surrendered to God, following Jesus does not mean that I have to preach sermons, coordinate Sunday services, run the kids ministry, lead worship, like conventional pastors or church staff might do. In fact, God was using seminary to show me that he's got a huge group of people, business people, investors, consultants, innovators, who were doing their best to faithfully follow Jesus, by building businesses.

Phillip Yan 16:31
Redemptive is really not about using people is not about serving people alone. It is actually about loving people. So Redemptive is actually focused on based on our based on the love that God demonstrate, and want us to learn. And as we love people that were willing to look at their well being through the business, the product and services that we can do something to help people flourish.

Anita Wing Lee 17:06
During day two of this conference, as I sat in the conference, and I listened to the sessions, and I heard these stories of entrepreneurs, who had experienced miracles, overcame impossible challenges with God by their side, something in me lit up. It was like I had lived in this tiny little box in my life in Toronto. And suddenly, God was showing me, well, there's a whole lot more that I'm also doing outside of your box. My heart and my mind exploded with Ideas. I couldn't even hold it in. I went into the bathroom, and prayed so hard. God, why are you showing me this? I can't do this. I don't know how. God I want to do this. I think this is how you made me. I think this is what I meant to be doing. I also failed so miserably the last time I attempted to be an entrepreneur. But I can't deny this feeling of life and possibility that's welling up in me.

Anita Wing Lee 18:17
I came out of the bathroom back into the auditorium. And I picked up my phone. And there was an email from Dr. James Tyler Robertson, the professor who had taught my history of Christianity courses, asking if I had time to chat. Hmm. Okay, God, I know you're listening. While I was a student and Dr. Robertson's courses, I'd ended up telling him that I'm a content producer. And he said, Oh, we might have a role coming up. This happened in the spring, in that nine month waiting period where I said I wouldn't apply to anything. And so I purposely didn't follow up with Dr. Robertson, because I wanted to see how God could bring me something by September 30. But by the time I was at this conference, it was September, and I already had the role as news director at the radio station. So I wasn't expecting anything. But I had just prayed so hard to God in the bathroom. Maybe God has something else up his sleeve.

Anita Wing Lee 19:24
After this conference, I started to devour everything that I could find about redemptive entrepreneurship, about being a faith driven entrepreneur. And one theme kept coming up, this concept that in the Bible, there is a cultural mandate. It spoke to the part of me that always wanted to create. This is how Philip describes it.

Phillip Yan 19:48
Cultural mandate is really what we learn from Genesis, from Genesis one when God created human being. Of course, in the very beginning is Adam um but that time that has a very clear cultural mandate that we supposed to multiply, we're supposed to take control, we're supposed to manage the world. And all of these responsibility is God giving to us. That is before the fall. That was really the DNA that God how God described the creation from the very beginning. That is the cultural mandate. In the very beginning, when God created a world, God said, everything is good every day, every night, when God finished the whole day, I will say, This is good. On the sixth day when God created men, and God said, this is very good. So we are different, we special, we exceptional. But God never say perfect. God create a world. And it's good. And it's with that intention to know that anything that you create today, you need maintenance, you need to have developed, you need to further a further improve. And that's actually the job that God gave us to continue on that mission to co-create and journey with God.

Anita Wing Lee 21:15
And this is how the director of my master's program Jessie Sudirgo puts it.

Jesse Sudirgo 21:20
I think the cultural mandate has a lot to do with us, understanding our place and not being actually creators, as much as we are cultivators of, and stewards of what God has already put in front of us. And actually, it's the creative process creative process is actually just taking, you know, the raw material of what God has given us, and being imaginative with that in the way that scriptures and and theology would inform us to do with it.

Anita Wing Lee 21:51
The more content I absorbed, the more it felt like God was telling me, my creative instincts are from God, I had this endearing sense that I wanted to create and communicate. I wanted to blog, write, make videos, tell stories. And according to the cultural mandate, that instinct is from God. And so creating is not evil. And now I was learning businesses could even be a vehicle that God uses to bless people and to love people. Sure, the industry isn't perfect. But there are people who are trying to faithfully follow and serve God be transformed by God. While they work, I was allowed to be one of those people.

Anita Wing Lee 22:40
Interestingly, I was also part of a church that believes the same thing, encounter God's transforming presence. We believed that God's presence could change the world. And we were just carriers of God's presence, so that through God, I would be transformed. And then I would go out and transform the world with God living in me, this was very different from understanding Christianity, as just a ticket to some eternal, far out salvation. Christianity was not just something personal. But it was something that called me outward into the world to create something good and meaningful. And that was what I always wanted to do.

Anita Wing Lee 23:25
After that conference, I attended every event that the Center for Redemptive Entrepreneurship put on, I got to know Philip well, and he became a friend, I made sure I was invited to every event he put on. Sometimes if he had an empty seat at an event, I wouldn't even go to his events twice. I was so encouraged by meeting people and absorbing all of these ideas around how God could use business and business people to do his work. As the months passed, and I kept going to the events at the center, my world started to be filled with Christian entrepreneurs. I would connect with one person and another, and another, and another. People who are genuinely encouraging me and who offered pockets of their time to talk with me. Every time I walked into one of these rooms, there was a sense of humility in the app. These people knew what it felt like to pour your heart into something and then not have a workout. But then to let God pick you back up and try again. And this time with God at the center. All of this coincided with what I was learning in my seminary classes. We kept talking about the idea of a missional church, or missional living. Missional not missionary. Here's how Jesse describes it.

Jesse Sudirgo 24:55
So the missional movement began with a thought that we should conceive of the starting point for theology as being the mission of God, that Missio Dei. And that being the lens in which much of our reading of scripture or tradition becomes illuminated as a result of that. And so if we see God on mission, then everything kind of follows that. And rather than simply seeing it as a static guide, where everything has already been done.

Anita Wing Lee 25:24
It's the idea that we follow a God of mission. God is the one who's on a mission, restoring and redeeming all things to himself. And that's the meta narrative of the Bible. And we are invited to be part of that. So a missional church is a community that takes time to see what God is calling them to do in their world.

Anita Wing Lee 25:50
By this point in my program, no one could convince me anymore, that ministry was only doing church related stuff. In Christian culture, you'll hear people talk about the word ministry, to describe when they're doing church stuff, like volunteering, or running Kids program. When people say they're going into full time ministry, they usually mean they're going to be a pastor at a church. But I started to see that anything that I do with a heart to bless, serve and heal, and be Jesus in the world, was my ministry. And that means even something like building a business can be a ministry. All of my work, if I did it with a heart for God, was my full time ministry. And no one could convince me anymore, that it couldn't be done because I saw people right in front of my eyes, business, people who are seeking God together, while they also work through the day in and day out of building a business, and showing up at work and trying to solve problems. And I was invited to be a part of this. I hadn't been asking God to make me an entrepreneur. When I made the decision to follow God in Episode Seven, after that call with Jesse, after Guatemala, I really let that part of me die. I saw that it was so much better to fix my eyes and my heart on Jesus, and to just live in God's will for my life. Instead of be this crazy frenetic, overworking Hustler, who tried to make things happen, who tried to prove herself. I was encouraged seeing these business people. But when I thought about me starting a business, I can't. God seemed to be surrounding me with a support network of Christian entrepreneurs. Why? I didn't ask for this. I didn't need this. I'm not an entrepreneur. But every time I showed up to an event, and I felt this sense of life, energy, like there was still more in me that God wanted to do. And here's a bunch of people creating things. So why not you?

Anita Wing Lee 28:33
You can be the one that starts recording first,

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 28:36
and you can be the one to introduce us. So that all works out. Yes. Hit it.

Anita Wing Lee 28:41
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the unpolished section of the podcast where me and Dr. James Taylor Roberson. Yes, that Dr. James Tyler Robertson. We talk about what happened and just take some time to decompress, ask questions and reflect. So what didyou think?

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 29:00
The timer has begun.

Anita Wing Lee 29:02
Oh, yeah and we tried to do it within seven minutes.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 29:04
But for the most part, we're pretty good at it. Every once in a while. This one I'm going to reflect on a little bit more. This is probably the most reflective I felt out of the whole season. So I have the least amount of say, and for anybody who knows me knows that this is not a state of mind that I am currently found in. So what about you, but now that you've heard it front to back and you finish the editing up? What are your thoughts, questions, you want to move forward?

Anita Wing Lee 29:29
Well, I have lots of things. Actually, I'm surprised that you don't, because for every one of these episodes, I probably cut out at least 50% of what I want to put in it. So you're only getting the best of the best. But for me, the big takeaway in this episode is that first of all, I think it's really funny that I went to seminary, the place that's like known for producing pastors. And it was through that, that I I've started to discover that I think I belong in the business world, I think I have more to give there. And it's not that I can't serve in a church. But I really can't deny that sense of joy that I've felt connecting with all these entrepreneurs and the Center for redemptive entrepreneurship. So I just think it's so ironic that this of all places, it's kind of like, going to med school and realizing that this is actually where you want to be an artist.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 30:22
Yeah. I mean, I think this is the listen to Philip talk about this. It's just never an idea. It's not that hasn't occurred to me, it's just one of those things I haven't put a lot of thought into. And we've talked so much about timing, that I think it is very important that I, I mentioned this timing of doing an article for publication due out in a few months. And one of the articles I was reading from both the turn of the century, but the 20 turn of the 20th century was this pastor in British Columbia talking about and this is in both 1901. And talking about the fact that at some level business is business and charity is charity, but actually almost identical to what this podcast episode is about. He's saying, When did that become the truth? Like, why can't there be charity in business? Why do you have to see his charity is something separate. So people who run businesses are very comfortable doing exactly what Philip said is like, this is all about profit, we can exploit people, we can exploit resources, etc, etc. And then in my private time, I'll be a good Christian, and give to charity to support the people that I'm exploiting Monday to Friday. And that was the point of this guy sermon. He's like, this is not the way of Christ who brought business to be part of His kingdom. And it's just so funny that it is read that didn't really know what to do with that information and kind of kept on going. And then I listened to this podcast. And that's what I mean, I'm feeling very reflective. So I'm not, I'm not as forthcoming. And I apologize to both Anita and the listeners.

Anita Wing Lee 31:51
Well, I actually have a lot I could say about that. But in the name of keeping it in seven minutes, because remember, I worked at a church and a fairly big church. So it works both ways. But we will keep going. Because the one thing that also has struck me is this idea that obviously every time people would ask me about this master's of divinity in this assumption that I'm going to be a pastor. And, and again, it's a funny thing to have spent all this time money, energy going to seminary, to realize that like, oh, like, being a pastor is not the only way that you can serve God. And I think it's really unfortunate that people have gotten that idea. And in a way I understand because maybe the place you learn about God is at church through a pastor. So it's normal for pastors to be like, Oh, God is calling you to follow in my footsteps. But I yeah, I hope that, in your own journey, you take that time to figure out like, how has God made you What is unique about you, and what gives you passion and energy, and realize that that can still be a way that you live your life for and with God?

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 32:57
Oh, that's such a good point, too. And I'm actually reminded of a story of Martin Luther being approached by a cobbler, we're at two minutes, 55 seconds left, by the way, a cobbler is a shoemaker. And of course, Martin Luther was a great scholar, a monk, he was a minister. But he's also a great champion of what we're talking about here. This priesthood of all believers, that to actually be clergy or involved in the church somehow, is just one facet of God's service and ministry can be literally any vocation and any calling any job. And what Martin Luther said to this, this, Christian Shoemaker when he asked, how do I be a Christian Shoemaker, his response was quite simple. He's like, don't put little crosses in the shoes. Just make good shoes. Whatever it is you're doing, listener, do well, due to the glory of God, honor and what I love seeing in this podcast, what I enjoyed seeing about this episode is you realizing your process for lack of a better term, your your calling your identity when something lights you up, like in the bathroom, which is a very weird way to put that. But hopefully, you've listened to this episode. So you know that that was what that's about. But when something lights you up like that, you can't ignore it. And I think part of this deconstruction backdrop, is that people are learning that they can trust their instincts, they can trust their own individual perceptions. And hopefully bring that to a community or a collection of people that are invested in them and saying, don't hide from this. Don't deny this. Understand that this can be God talking to you. And if it is God talking to you, it deserves your full attention.

Anita Wing Lee 34:42
Perfect segue into the question that I wanted to leave you with.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 34:46
You see what happens when you just let me have a little bit of reflection instead of rambly jam leanness, so we actually get good segues that were not planned. We are at one minute and five seconds left.

Anita Wing Lee 34:56
All right, so something for you guys to think about as you process this episode. though is how do you feel about your current life situation? I'm naturally an introvert. So I don't mind talking to myself with a microphone to make this podcast. And so one of the things I've done a lot over the past few years is stop and reflect and figure out like, where am I right now? How do I feel? Especially when I've arrived at a new place, like back in Toronto or new jobs? I stop and I think about like, how do I feel? Am I overwhelmed? Am I am I stuck and my gridlocked or am I welcoming something new. And for me taking that time, and we can call it discerning to discern the kind of season or chapter that God has me in has really helped me. Because as I've done this at least once a year, sometimes a few times a year, I've come to have to really feel that, that God knows my situation. You know, sometimes I'll be like, Hey, this is the season I think I'm in. And then I'll kind of hear this other voice that tells me well, maybe you're not stuck. Maybe you're just waiting. And so I encourage you to just think about that. Because I feel like we live in such a quick, fast-paced culture that we override our feelings. And we're, we're quick to judge and look at where other people are at. But it's okay to let yourself be in whatever season or chapter you're in, and however long that takes you. And this episode has been an example. And it wasn't my own life. I didn't expect this to come along. It just kind of started to happen and new seasons can come upon you without you expecting it.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 36:33
Well, speaking of fast-paced culture, there was the tone there was the beep, there was the bell to let us know. So please, dear listeners, honor your process on your place and understand that God has created this whole vast world and is inviting you to find your place in it. Enjoy the travel. I guess that's it for now.

Anita Wing Lee 36:52
Yeah, stay tuned for the season one finale.

Dr. James Tyler Robertson 36:58
Finale, it took us a while to say the word finale but that's it season one finale. See you next time. See you.

Anita Wing Lee 37:06
Heavenly minded earthly good is the production of Tyndale University. Visit our website for more information