Austin is an idea- and enterprise-driven city, with many businesspeople spending the majority of their waking hours at the office. Christ Church Austin engages their community’s needs and rhythms by helping professionals flourish on the job.
Each month, Christ Church Austin welcomes 20-40 businessmen and women to gather for lunch in the church’s sanctuary. Local CEOs, software developers, bankers, shop owners, HR specialists, and more network over food from local restaurants and hear from a speaker about topics relevant to their work. At the April lunch, they discussed “Duty to Boss” as part of a recent series, “Business as Christian Vocation.” Attendees learned about serving their supervisors in a way that pleases and brings honor to the Lord, and heard from a practitioner panel including a CEO, shareholder and director who shared their practices, joys and challenges in the workplace.
Holding these lunches in the sanctuary is a visible symbol that the marketplace is indeed sacred, says organizer Eric Stumberg. Stumberg, 50, is founder and CEO of Tengo Internet, a company that builds and manages outdoor WiFi networks across the United States. He grew up in a family of Christian entrepreneurs, but he’d never heard that business could be a spiritual calling until he attended a retreat taught by Seattle Pacific University’s Jeff Van Duzer and leadership expert Tod Bolsinger in 2012.
“That was the first time I had heard someone talk about a theology of business or that I could be called to the marketplace,” Stumberg says. “It connected all the dots.”
Stumberg had been attending Christ Church Austin for a few years, and he couldn’t wait to share what he was learning. He started a book study on Van Duzer’s Why Business Matters to God and invited eight people to attend. The message excited and challenged participants, so Stumberg talked to the Very Rev. Cliff Warner about bringing the topic to Austin as part of the church’s Faith and Culture series. Warner was excited about communicating a calling and vision to people in the marketplace.
“Our work in the world is sacramental, part of our living sacrifice, and we are all priests,” says Warner. “I see my calling as being a priest for the church, who itself is a kingdom of priests for the world. Eric gets that as well as anyone I know.”
When Christ Church brought Van Duzer in to do a workshop and preach to the congregation, attendees received his message with enthusiasm, and Stumberg began to pray, “Lord, what’s next?” That’s when Christ Church started the monthly “Faith and Business” lunches, which Stumberg initially taught.
“Cliff has been super affirming of what God is doing in me and letting me work that out in the context of Christ Church and also for the city,” Stumberg says.
Now, 10-12 churches are represented at the lunches, and Stumberg invites speakers like Philip Moss, a coach and trainer who taught about performance management and the Christian manager’s role as commissioning agent. April’s “Duty to Boss” session created some vibrant interaction, dismantling the notion of a gap between sacred and secular vocation. Attendees leave equipped with principles and practices that fundamentally change the way they see themselves serving within the business sector.
“It’s not a new idea to think of your Christian duty to your boss or coworkers, but it gets lost in the culture,” Stumberg says. “Our mission field is the organization in which we are placed, not only the intrinsic things are we doing through business. We are reframing the people we work with as our neighbors and seeking to love them.”
In between monthly meetings, Stumberg visits group members at their workplaces, getting to know their contexts, affirming them and meeting their coworkers. His next project is starting a vocationally-oriented noonday prayer service for office workers, held in an office building and led by the Rev. Peter Coelho of Church of the Cross, a plant of Christ Church Austin. Stumberg and Warner hope they will be able to replicate the noonday prayer service throughout the city.
Moreover, Stumberg dreams of integrating a value and esteem for business and commerce into churches across America.
“My vision is that the exemplars pastors use in their sermons won’t always be the missionary in the Muslim lands or the pastor, but the guy that has a landscaping business—the ones you don’t normally fit into the story of doing great things for Christ,” Stumberg says. “It’s elevating business into worship and the life of the church.”
Learn more about Christ Church Austin.