Dear Friend,

Jesus said, “Teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” That invitation in Matthew 28:20 has been guiding this series as we ask what the teaching of Jesus looks like in the places where we work, lead, decide, and carry responsibility.

So far, we have reflected on work as a place of discipleship, on clients and colleagues becoming neighbours, on leadership as service, on the sacred weight of keeping our word, on making disciples by helping others grow into leaders, on seeking God’s Kingdom first, on what our pace is producing in us, and, most recently, on forgiveness and the debts we keep on the books.

This week, I want to turn to a question that sits underneath almost every decision a business leader makes, even if we rarely say it out loud: Whose is it?

Most of us would answer quickly. My business. My clients. My time. My money. I built it, I took the risk, I signed the personal guarantee at the bank. And there is truth in that. Ownership comes with real responsibility, and many business owners carry it at great personal cost. But Jesus has a way of gently loosening our grip on that small word my.

When He sent His first disciples out to heal, teach, and serve, He gave them one simple instruction about everything they had received:

“You have been treated generously, so live generously.”
Matthew 10:8 (MSG)

Notice the order. Jesus does not begin with a demand to give. He begins by reminding them of what they have been given. In the Kingdom, generosity is never first a fundraising strategy or a tax plan. It is the natural response of someone who has discovered how generously they have been treated.

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to attend the Celebration of Generosity retreat in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was a blessing in many ways, but one of the highlights for me was meeting Alan Barnhart in person.

Alan and his brother, Eric, took over their parents’ small crane and rigging business in Memphis, Tennessee, in the mid-1980s. From the beginning, they and their wives made a decision that shaped everything that followed: the company belonged to God, and they were simply managing it for Him. They capped their own lifestyle at roughly what the middle-class families in their Sunday school class earned, and they committed to giving about half of the company’s profits away every year. In the first year, that meant $50,000. The next year, $150,000.

Then the business grew, year after year, far beyond anything they had expected. And as it grew, so did the temptation to change the rules. Instead, in 2007, the Barnharts transferred 99 percent of the company’s ownership to a charitable trust with the National Christian Foundation, and they gave away the last 1 percent in 2012. Today Barnhart Crane and Rigging employs well over a thousand people in dozens of locations, and its giving to ministry has grown to tens of millions of dollars a year. Just as remarkable, the giving is not held tightly at the top. A group of employees and their spouses helps decide where the company’s charitable dollars go, and every employee receives funds to give to a ministry or charity of their own choosing.

Meeting Alan, I noticed two things. The first was his humility; nothing about him announces the size of the company he leads. The second surprised me more: the quiet authority with which he speaks. For a long time, I quietly believed that the more money you have, the more authority you can enforce. Wealth, I assumed, gives you the power to demand respect, whether people offer it freely or not. Yet here is a man who leads a very large company, operating at the highest level of business on a modest salary, and his authority is unmistakable. It does not come from what he owns. It seems to come from what he has let go of. That is very close to the way of Jesus. When He finished the Sermon on the Mount, the crowds were amazed because He taught as one who had authority (Matthew 7:29), and this was the same Jesus who had nowhere to lay His head (Matthew 8:20).

I am not sharing Alan’s story because every leader is called to give away their company. Most of us will not be. And Jesus never promised that generosity is a formula for growth. The Barnharts’ business grew, but many generous owners have walked through lean years too. What moves me is not the size of the gift. It is the freedom in it. Once the business was no longer theirs to protect, they could run it with open hands. Jesus spoke about that freedom when He talked about treasure:

“The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”
Matthew 6:21 (MSG)

Jesus is not first trying to get something out of our hands. He wants to set something free in our hearts. Closed hands are seldom only a money problem. More often they are a fear problem. We hold on because we are afraid there will not be enough: enough cash flow for payroll, enough margin to survive the next downturn, enough recognition to feel secure. Generosity begins to grow when we start to believe that we are held by a Father who knows what we need, and that we were never meant to be the final source of our own security.

And if you don’t own a business, the question still applies to you. Your salary, your role, your expertise, and the hours in your workday have also been entrusted to you. In Jesus’ parable of the talents, the servants were not owners; they were trusted with their master’s money (Matthew 25:14–30). Whether we own the company or work for it, we can hold what we have been given tightly or with open hands.

That is why generosity at work is far bigger than a donation at year-end. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus put it this way:

“No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.”
Matthew 5:42 (MSG)

For a leader, living generously might look like letting your team take the applause for a win you made possible. It might mean giving an unhurried hour to a young employee who needs a listening ear more than another instruction. It might look like paying a small supplier on time, or even early, when you could stretch them to ninety days and they would never complain. It might be extending the benefit of the doubt before assuming the worst, paying a wage that honours the person and not only the market, or sharing what you have learned with a newer business owner who could one day become a competitor. None of this will show up on a charitable receipt. All of it is generosity.

Jesus also made it clear where generosity finds Him most directly. In His story of the sheep and the goats, the King says to those who fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, and visited the sick:

“Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”
Matthew 25:40 (MSG)

Every workplace has people who are easily overlooked. The cleaner who comes in after everyone has gone home. The newcomer to the country who is still finding the right words in English. The applicant with a gap in their résumé. The neighbourhood around your building that your business drives past every day. Jesus says that when we see them, and act, we are meeting Him.

So, who owns your business? You may never sign a single share over to a charitable trust. But you can begin where Alan and Eric Barnhart began: with a quiet willingness to hold what you have been given a little more loosely. And you can remember where this whole story starts. Every client, every skill, every opportunity, every breath was a gift before it was ever an asset. We are not trying to squeeze generosity out of a tight heart. We are learning to let the generosity that has already reached us keep flowing through us.

Reflection Questions

1. When I think about my business, my time, or my money, how often do I use the word my? What would change if I saw myself more as a steward than an owner?
2. Where do I notice my hands closing out of fear that there will not be enough?
3. In what ways have I been treated generously, by God and by people, in my work and career?
4. Apart from money, where could I be more generous this month: with credit, time, trust, knowledge, or the benefit of the doubt?
5. Who are the overlooked or ignored people in or around my workplace, and what would it look like to see them as Jesus does?
6. How do my payment terms, wages, and business practices reflect the generosity of God?
7. What is one generous step, small or large, that Jesus may be inviting me to take this week?

From the series Working the Jesus Way, Learning to Follow Christ in Business, Leadership, and Everyday Work