Ask a Pastor Ep. 78 - Running a Business as a Christian

Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, Joel Haldeman and Mike Novak sit down to have a conversation about some questions related to running a business as a Christian. How do you train staff with Christian values, how to balance the pursuit of success and your values and more.

Podcast Resources
Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller - https://amzn.to/37h3O7r

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Podcast Transcript

Joel Haldeman: Hey. Welcome to the Ask a Pastor Podcast. We're going to jump into some questions that you have sent in. If you have questions, send them to us. We'd love to take a look at them and be able to spend some real time discussing those together. askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com is where you can send those. Today, I'm joined by Kurt and Mike. Kurt, why don't you tell us a little bit about Mike.

Kurt Bjorklund: This is Mike Novak. Mike's been a longtime part of Orchard Hill Church, a business owner in the Pine-Richland area, owned the Pine's Tavern for, what? 35-

Mike Novak: 41.

Kurt Bjorklund: 41. I knew it was a long time, and recently sold it, so has had just a great business and sense and place in the community. Also has been a big part of the church here, has been on our elder board, instrumental right now with our venues, working with our venue committee, and just an all around great guy. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Novak: Thank you. [inaudible 00:00:59].

Joel Haldeman: A Christmas decorator extraordinaire.

Kurt Bjorklund: That's right. That's right. If you've ever come to Orchard Hill on Christmas Eve, the handiwork of Mike Novak is seen all around with all the trees and décor and now with the district of Butler County.

Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow.

Mike Novak: Growing.

Kurt Bjorklund: It isn't just Wexford anymore. We're having to, yeah, get extra storage units, things like that that ... But, yes, that is Mike. That's a great thing.

Joel Haldeman: I remember a district building was covered with snow as we put [inaudible 00:01:28]-

Mike Novak: Oh, that's put away, yeah. That's funny.

Joel Haldeman: So tell us, Mike, you're on the ... Are you current board member?

Mike Novak: No.

Joel Haldeman: You are not.

Mike Novak: I'm on the venue committee.

Joel Haldeman: Okay, on a venue committee.

Mike Novak: That's right.

Joel Haldeman: Tell us what excites you as you just work on venue stuff. I mean, you've been doing a lot of work [crosstalk 00:01:44]-

Mike Novak: Well, it's great. I feel like I'm a roaming ambassador for the main campus and just being among people that are excited to see things grow and watching it grow and the enthusiasm. It's just very uplifting to me.

Kurt Bjorklund: So for people who don't know, we have how many venues right now? Where are they? What are they like?

Mike Novak: We have two. We have one in the strip district of Penn Avenue, 1620 Penn Avenue, and in Butler County up on Duffy Road, off Duffy Road, yeah.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. And exploring another one in the Triborough area as well.

Mike Novak: We have another one coming. That's very exciting, too, in Triborough, [inaudible 00:02:17], [inaudible 00:02:18], and it'll be nice.

Joel Haldeman: That's really exciting.

Mike Novak: Very exciting.

Joel Haldeman: The subject that we want to dive into is just around Christians in business. And we want to specifically talk about business more so than being an employee. And so obviously we wanted you here as somebody who's lived a life of running a business and now gets to look at that in the rear view mirror. And so I'm not sure where to start other than to ask, tell us a lesson that you've learned as a business owner in balancing, "I'm a Christian, and I'm in this business." There's going to be some things that are intention there. So what comes to mind when you-

Mike Novak: Well, I think that being Christian in business is just being authentic to your beliefs. I've always been Christian but never like I was until I came to Orchard Hill Church. I mean, I was raised Christian. I was raised Roman Catholic. And it's living out those visions that you have to make a culture where people thrive, whether it's your customer or your employee. And so from the very beginning I was raised in a very WASP-y neighborhood, and I was part of the [inaudible 00:03:34] in a Catholic family. And when we went into business originally in 1968 my father was like, "The neighborhood's going to go downhill because they're going into the bar business."

Mike Novak: And I was determined, I was actually offended by that, and I was determined to prove that you could be in the hospitality business and serve alcohol and still have a good reputation and have a business that people were attracted to. And so that was part of my own personal mission after I got into the business. I had done some corporate work before then, some government work when I got into this business. I thought, "Well, this is my opportunity," because I grew up in that community, to become somewhat of a influencer in that community by what I did.

Mike Novak: And I think that's the biggest thing you can do is you behave the way you want to be seen, and you act out those Christian values that you were raised with. And I know that at that time, and the funny thing is that, looking back, one of the reflective things is that in good times and bad times I always felt the support of God in every decision made. I looked for it. I looked for the counsel. And that's where I turned if it wasn't so good. It was just here that I was able to more verbalize that, had the Christian community support.

Joel Haldeman: So just out of curiosity, 40 years. What kind-

Mike Novak: I was two when we went into business.

Joel Haldeman: What's that?

Mike Novak: I was two when we went into business. [inaudible 00:05:02] 40 is forever.

Joel Haldeman: What kind of changes did you see in the industry over 40 years?

Mike Novak: I [inaudible 00:05:09] would say that probably on the employee side work ethic. And I was always very fortunate because of the area that I'm in. I always had a lot of people draw from. I think that we're multi-generational right now in the workforce. I mean, my youngest was 17. My oldest was 87. I had two 87-year-olds and two 17-year-olds.

Male: Wow.

Mike Novak: So you have any of the generation, X's, Y, Z, everything going through that at the same time. So when I started out it wasn't that diverse as far as age was going. So trying to ... You say being in being in business is like leading in a team of horses. You want to stay pretty much a straight shot [inaudible 00:05:46]. And trying to balance all those different values to those generations make it quite different to be a leader in that time. I see this. I served as a school director at Pine Richland also. And they have the same issue that teachers that have been there 30 years versus teachers that have been there or just starting new. So there's different values at that time in their lives.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Kurt had you come and speak to the staff at least one time and share some of your ... What would you call it? What was that [inaudible 00:06:21]. I mean, it was on hospitality.

Mike Novak: Values.

Kurt Bjorklund: Values. That's right.

Mike Novak: That's right.

Joel Haldeman: Obviously, you had all to of intentionality in the values and how you trained staff at the Pines. What sort of motivated that?

Mike Novak: The desire to succeed, to make an organization that was successful. The values are your key, I believe. For example, being a Christian, everybody there knew I was a Christian. I didn't do anything exceptional. I mean, I would take our invitations for Christmas Eve and hang them up on the bulletin board and things like that. But they knew by my actions and the way I behaved what the expectations were, and that was because the values, which became the core values of the company. And that everybody went through orientation. They knew exactly where we were at. And if that changed, then we would make changes accordingly to fulfill that.

Joel Haldeman: Did I hear you say that correctly that the core values of the company were your core values?

Mike Novak: Right.

Joel Haldeman: So that the company reflected who you were.

Mike Novak: That's right. The company was ... And I think good leaders ... I think that's a good way to look at it for anybody in a leadership role that their core values ... Again, I was in a business that served a lot of alcohol. Did I stand around and get drunk as the boss? No, I didn't. And then the same token, if you're the boss the values you have at work don't go away when you go home. It's a symbiotic-type relationship within yourself to go home and you're still the same way.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, yeah. Kurt, what do you think of this? He said that his ultimate desire ... Not ultimate desire. That your desire in being intentional was to make the business succeed. How do we speak to business people, whether they are owners or just in helping run the business, about success and the desire to pursue success?

Kurt Bjorklund: I think success is good. I think it's better than not having success. And I think business, if it's a business that helps people, so feeding people is helping people, providing a service is helping people. That done is helping human flourishing, which ultimately is part of success. And so helping people have jobs, helping people receive services is all part of, I would say, the original creation mandate, which is be fruitful and multiply in the earth. Make the earth. Cultivate it. Help it thrive. That is responding to the call of God. And I think from a vocational standpoint is a high calling just as a quote, unquote ministerial vocation would be. So I would try to move away from the sacred divide, secular-sacred divide and try to say they're both sacred when done unto God.

Kurt Bjorklund: And so success is a good thing. I think where it can become problematic is when it becomes more important than human flourishing. And that is seen when you start to take advantage of workers, when you start to cut corners, and are dishonest with something in order to get success. Then all of a sudden you're not helping human flourishing. What you're doing is you're actually hurting it because you're cheating something along the way. And so a company that employees people below human accepted standards for their own success financially doesn't feel to me like they're helping human flourishing. Now I know the argument is, "Well, the people do ultimately what's good for them." And if it's the best job available you are helping human flourishing. There's truth to that. But I think you at least have to ask that question.

Mike Novak: Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: I live in a neighborhood where the business district is not, I wouldn't say is thriving. And so we watch these places open up, and they're open for six months. And sometimes we look at it open up and say, "That's never going to work." And six months later or 18 months later it closes. And all of that is so negative and discouraging, I think, in the neighborhood. And just to think of a place that has been open for 40 years ... Was it open before you were a part of it?

Mike Novak: It's been open since 1914.

Joel Haldeman: Wow. And will be open again-

Mike Novak: Yes, that's right.

Joel Haldeman: ... after some things are done. What an incredible thing that that would do for a community. If I think of the neighborhood that I'm in and think of a thriving business being there for that long and doing good in the neighborhood, yeah, I'm totally with you. There's this verse in Jeremiah that many of us are familiar with. This is talking to the people of God as they're out of their homelands. They're in exile. they're in a land where they don't want to be. And the advice or command that they're given is build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat the produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bare sons and daughters, multiply there.

Joel Haldeman: And so not decrease but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare you will fine your welfare. Just this idea that we are blessed when we seek to have our neighborhoods, our community, our nation blessed is such a, I think, a powerful idea. Any thoughts that you have towards that?

Mike Novak: From a business perspective?

Joel Haldeman: Yeah.

Mike Novak: Yeah, I think that that's part of a business [inaudible 00:12:12] that you have to become involved. And it's good for business, number one, to be involved in the community. And each time, I always told my staff that we actually were in the people business. We really weren't in the food business. Food is what we did was secondary. Building relationships with our customers was primary. And that extended into the neighborhood. We had a mission statement for our giving in the sense that if you were resident of the Pine Richland School District or Hampton or Morris, [inaudible 00:12:41] places that surrounded us that, yes, we would support things, that if they were related to the arts, related to history, [inaudible 00:12:49] things I liked, quite frankly.

Mike Novak: But that was reciprocated so many times. And they supported you and saw that you were invested in the community as opposed to just there to take something from the community. And it could be something, and we used to work very closely with the Northern Tier Library. We did breakfast with Santa. It was donated. That type of thing. But as kids became ... the prom kids, the homecoming kids, the wedding rehearsal kids, it was because they had a relationship with us. They had come, there was breakfast with Santa 30 years ago. My first bus boy is now 58.

Joel Haldeman: That's incredible.

Mike Novak: Yeah. And I have a secret service agent, a astronaut, an actor on Broadway. I mean, this is all from this region. And it was always a joy to work with the younger people.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah.

Mike Novak: Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: You both really can answer this question. The question is, as a business owner one of your responsibilities is to maximize profit. In the church you just have this same sort of, you have to balance the books and you want to make sure that what is coming in is more than what is being spent as best as possible. Let me ask you, Mike, first. How do you think about that sort of Christian-ly as, "Part of my job is to maximize profits?" Is that a Christian thought, or have you felt conflict in that?

Mike Novak: No, not at all. I think that the Christian perspective is to do well and that profit is part of that. However, profit's not the main goal. Profit's the excess of doing good, providing to your staff. Profit is able to go on and reinvent yourself. You know, go on with the next remodel job, things like that. And it's different in a smaller business, and I think a smaller business is defined by anything under $10 million in sales now. I never had shareholders. So there is where you have a responsibility now. And shareholders, my shareholders were my customers. But in big business, you have to show a profit that drives other things in the marketplace. So I think in small business you have a little more flexibility in that. But I think it's very Christian to desire to want to succeed, to grow and make people do well around you. I mean, if my employees weren't doing well, I wasn't doing well.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. The church is, I think, a little different in that profit, certainly, from a financial standpoint isn't the goal. But I think stewardship is an important element, meaning you do have to think through all of those things. And I certainly feel a lot of weight because we have about 50 employees. And so I feel the weight of the economics, providing for all those families saying, "We can't extend too far and then have to let people go," because that's part of how people live. And whether it's health insurance and salaries and all of that. And so from that standpoint, it's probably very similar to a business. But certainly our goal is to take whatever profit we have financially and reinvest it into helping more people find a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah. How, though, do you balance that with greed? Because ultimately, the better the business does, the better you do. So you have to walk this fine line of, "I want the business to do well," because obviously you want your employees to do well. You want the neighborhood to do well. But there's this part of you that probably is always thinking, "When this does well, I do well personally."

Mike Novak: Sure. Sure. And that should be one of your goals. But I think there's a way you present yourself or the business. I mean, I was always conscious of what kind of car I drove. I employed a lot of people that were entry level. And I think that how they see you give, like give back to the community. We always celebrated everything, whether it was somebody's birthday or somebody was accepted at school. I had a lot of people that were in college or they got hired to another job. So I think it's sharing that celebration with people.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah. How do you-

Kurt Bjorklund: Let me just piggyback on that. So you just said something that's interesting. You said you were conscious of the car you drove. So say more about why that type of symbolic decision matters. Because I assume what you're referring to is, "I probably could have afforded a more expensive car than the one I chose to drive, but I didn't want people that were working with me to feel like, 'Oh, you're taking all the profit,'" or something like ... Say more about what went into that kind of thinking.

Mike Novak: Right. So as an individual independent business owner, I'm working side by side with people that are less fortunate, had come to this as a part-time job, struggling through school loans, that type of thing. And they knew that I was successful. I mean, it's 40 years. If I haven't been successful by then, there's a problem and financially rewarded by that time, too. But even early on as a single person, I mean, I always loved to have a nice sports car or something like that. But I was very conscious about that. But, again, it was a reflection of my personal values, that I also respected where you at in life as opposed to where I'm at in my life also.

Mike Novak: This is attainable. It was an example, too, that you can have better things if you work hard. I was very fortunate to have a team around me for most of the time I was there. Not that we didn't go through trials and tribulations. I mean, we did. But that were very supportive, and again, I always tried to pay the very best I could. I was an open book that way, too. I didn't hide anything. If you had a question, ask it, and I answered it and I can show you where we were at financially good or bad. So it was good to not be ... I could have done more things or traveled more or whatever, but I chose not to.

Joel Haldeman: How about ... I'm sure that it was always hard to separate yourself from the business. And I don't mean not working all the time. I'm just talking about coming to define yourself by the Pines, how do you do that? Because that's a struggle for every person that works or every person ... Yeah, every person, not just people who go to work.

Mike Novak: Well, I came to that realization ... That's a good question, because I think so many people struggle with that as a person ... Being a leader in an independent restaurant or in any leadership position, sometimes it's going to be pretty lonely. And you have to look out and around and about to learn what other people are doing. I mean, I was very lucky to have a lot of people who wanted to mentor me, give me advice. I always looked to other people outside the business. I looked to corporations like Disney. Can I pull something from there? What makes them magical into my business, type of thing. So I really pursued those things.

Mike Novak: When I came here to Orchard Hill, it was interesting. I was very lucky that for the first 20 years that everything I did was very successful. And I went through a rough patch. And my wife, I'm very fortunate to be married to a wife who was an HR executive for many years and had a lot of good advice. And one day I was talking to her. She was working on the PPG place. And I'm driving down 79 and I'm looking at the building talking to her on the phone. And she says, "I can't help you anymore. You need to call Orchard Hill and talk to somebody up there."

Mike Novak: And she says, "Because if you don't call them, I will." And she didn't. I called, and like 20 minutes I got a call back from the church. And it was from Denny Parker at the time. He basically, I told him what was going on. He says, "I'm going to introduce you to somebody." It was a business person here at Orchard Hill. And we talked a little bit just briefly. Piqued my interest. And so what I found out at that time or the next year and half being involved here was the Pines is what I did; it wasn't who I am.

Mike Novak: And so I knew that, but I didn't act it out. And I didn't think that way. And I had to change the way I thought about things. I had to have a new vision for myself. And so where I saw that building the business, obviously, the press accolades. I mean, we have numerous awards. I took them all down, actually, at the restaurant. They were just [inaudible 00:21:41] things, press clippings, whatever it was, anything. We were covered very extensively early on, and we received local and national recognition.

Joel Haldeman: So you're not like five guys. You don't have-

Mike Novak: No, but [inaudible 00:21:54] either, because I did need to go to the restroom.

Joel Haldeman: Didn't know there were that many awards. [inaudible 00:21:58]. [crosstalk 00:21:59] places.

Mike Novak: That's right. That's right. And I didn't feel I had to do it. Part of my being more Christian, I guess, would say, was changing the mission of how I approached that. And the [inaudible 00:22:12] wasn't focused on giving all the awards. It was focusing on the core business values. So to answer your question further, it's like, again, the Pines is what I did; it's not who I am. And I was able to mix that together and find out who I really was.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah. That's such a powerful Christian value to say, "Rooted in humility, instead of us being the one that's going to tell you how great we are, even though we're pointing to what other people have said, we're just going to let the product speak for itself and we're going to let other people speak positively about us." And I think that's one of those interpersonal, that's just a great way to live our lives. How would you answer that question, Kurt, just about not letting our work become our identity?

Kurt Bjorklund: I think that's a challenging thing as you alluded to for just about anybody. And I would guess that there's two things that happen, probably, to help anybody with that. One is probably need to come to a crisis point. It sounds like you hit one.

Mike Novak: I did.

Kurt Bjorklund: Where you have to almost put a stake in the ground and say, "This is not me. I am something apart from this." But then there's probably hundreds of choices along the way where you have to decide that over and over again proactively. Or it will be re-consume ... You can have the stake-in-the-ground moment and then you find yourself right back in the same zone. And so I think there's a process of coming to realize it and say, "I don't want to defined by this." Because when you start, you almost do. It's like, "Oh, yeah. I'm this. I'm that." And then you hit a point where you say, "Well, no matter how successful or unsuccessful this is, I don't want this to be the definition of my life. I want the definition of my life to be something else."

Kurt Bjorklund: And hopefully from a Christian standpoint that becomes my identity in Christ. Because other than that, any other identity ultimately isn't safe, even a family identity isn't entirely safe. And so to say, "That's my real identity." But then you'll be pulled back in. Something will happen and you'll say, "Well, I got to get this or I'm not enough," or, "This isn't enough." And I think there's a given play, and I think the more you grapple with that the more solid the ground becomes. The less you grapple with it the more shifty it is.

Mike Novak: I think one of the keywords I used was process. And I think one of the things looking back is that everything seemed to be a process. And this is where I say that God came into this at the [inaudible 00:25:03] time is that the process was being defined as I went, and it took time. And it usually wasn't on my time. It was usually on, what I'd say now, God's time. I got everything I wanted, it just wasn't on my time frame. So I think any, again, when I went through a tough time there, it was a process. And if I went through great times it was a process. And if we wanted to achieve a goal, there was always a process in there.

Mike Novak: I think that we become, our human side becomes impatient. And sometimes we turn that also into on our-self. "Well, I haven't done the right thing. I'm not good enough," or what everything like that. Or on the reverse side if it was something bad, "Why me? Why not you?" You know? Because you have the tools to deal with this. That's why it's happening to you. You know? Again, it's a give and take-type relationship with everything, your family, your business, and trying to balance that. I mean, I was also the type of guy that was an over achiever.

Mike Novak: I was going to work this until it's done. And the thing is I can say this after 40 years is that I still left there loving what I did. It just wasn't who I was. I always tried to find something outside of work to help balance that. I had my family life, which we had a routine. You had to balance that. My wife was an executive. But we kept to our routine, and she supported me. I supported her. I went back to Pitt in 2010. I was a school director. I was [inaudible 00:26:39] at the church.

Mike Novak: So I had something to balance me on the other side, so I didn't become too tied up. And I also saw things in other organizations that helped me which I pulled back into my organization. And I also saw that I wasn't alone. And going and getting involved with those types of groups and things like that that everybody, all businesses have problems, you know?

Joel Haldeman: Yeah. Tim Keller has a book called Every Good Endeavor. And I've just been totally blessed by that book. We have a ministry in the strip district where we're reading through that book a couple of chapters at a time and discussing it. And our gathering is called Work Matters, because we're discussing ... I guess the premise of this book is that-

Mike Novak: You've had a good turnout for that, too, haven't you?

Joel Haldeman: It's been great, yeah.

Mike Novak: I know. I almost came down one morning.

Joel Haldeman: [crosstalk 00:27:27] like 6:30 morning, too. And the premise of the book is that the work that we do, it is part of our calling from God. And you said this, Kurt, that we were created to cultivate and to fill the earth. Part of what he talks about is that as we do our work ... It's when we do our work with excellence, if we're doing it for the glory of God, then ... Or I should say that if we see our work as an extension of God's calling on our life, then as we do our work with excellence we are doing it to the glory of God.

Joel Haldeman: And so I just think that's just a great way of looking at our work. I don't know about you, Kurt, but there are parts of my job even as a pastor where it's like, "I hate doing this, and this is time consuming. It doesn't have a clear outcome." But the concept is ... And I say this to us because people look at us and they say idiotic things. They're not idiotic, but they're not true about-

Mike Novak: Like you just work three hours a week.

Joel Haldeman: They say that, but-

Kurt Bjorklund: You know what my comeback to that is? "I don't even work that much. Half an hour." I just have the 30 minute slot. Everything else ... That's my comeback now when somebody says that.

Joel Haldeman: The sort of uninformed thing that someone will say is, "Wow. It must be so great to feel like everything that you do is building the kingdom of God or building the church." And it's like, that person can go to work to the glory of God better than I can some days, because even if I'm sitting down to write a sermon, if they're doing their work, whatever that might be, to the glory of God and I'm just doing mine because I need to get through it, then what they're doing is more glorifying to God than what I'm doing. And that's just, I think, changes completely how we think about life and work, that you can see a role, whether that's being a homemaker or going to work for somebody else or being a business owner to, "I'm going to do this with excellence, because when I do it with excellence I'm doing what God's called me to do."

Mike Novak: And I think that's a challenge, too, being Christian in the workplace because not everybody in the workplace is Christian. And that used to bother me because I'd say, "I'm doing all this good stuff, and I get this one person who's betrayed me or did something that they shouldn't have done, they knew clearly was against what we wanted the values to be." But on the reverse end is that's part of my glory of God is trying to create this workspace that does glorify God through whatever means possible. And it was many times I doubted myself and said, "Oh, why am I doing this," type of stuff. But you keep persevering.

Mike Novak: And I think you have these goals and you want to meet them. One of the funniest things that happened, and I look back ... I've had a lot, past two months to reflect. But the last week we were open I had a gal who had come in to help us, because we weren't rehiring, but she had worked for us. And she was struggling, single mom. And she said she didn't have a ride into work. And I wasn't doing anything other than closing the business. And I said, "Oh, I'll go down and get her." She just lived in Hampton township.

Mike Novak: So we're driving back, and I had some familiarity with the background of this gal. But we were about halfway to work and she said to me, "You're religious, aren't you?" And I said, "Well, it depends what your definition of religious is." I said, "But, yes." I said, "I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior." She says, "Well, I lost one of my friends yesterday to drug addiction." Actually, she was sick, but this gal's husband had died from drug addiction, and this girl developed cancer. They have a seven-year-old child.

Mike Novak: She says, "I need a prayer. Can somebody pray. Can you pray for this?" We're sitting in the car, and I'm thinking, "God's funny. I mean, he really has a sense of humor." He had to show me, "Yes, after 40 years you being a Christian is paying off right this minute." You know? And it was really eye-opening to me. And I actually got out of the car and I think, "I cannot believe this just happened to me." But somebody I really didn't have a big relationship with knew that I had a relationship with Christ. So there was defining proof that this did pay off after 40 years and being involved.

Kurt Bjorklund: It's a neat moment.

Mike Novak: It was a very neat-

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, especially in those last days.

Mike Novak: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kurt Bjorklund: And even neat in the context of you had it because you went out of your way to serve her rather than just saying, "Hey, it's somebody else's problem."

Mike Novak: Sure. Sure. Yeah. So it was neat.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. Joel, what have you kind of seen having kind of a second business as well as working in the church? What have you seen as the primary difference between how you lead and work in one context as in the other?

Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow. I think one of the things that I've struggled with in that environment, and we're going to explore this more in depth in another podcast, is I've come to see that in the things I've done outside of the church, was involved in a little bit of real estate and opening up this brewery is that the more I work, the more I get paid. And that's been just a very interesting ... You have to draw a line someplace. You have to decide when is enough, enough. But I would say in terms of how I work, I approach all those things the same way. I have boundaries with people, both in that setting and in my role as a pastor. And I also always try to approach things with faith in Christ. Not always faith in people but with faith in Christ. Yeah.

Kurt Bjorklund: Okay.

Joel Haldeman: Just out of curiosity, over the years what would you say was the percentage of people that you hired that were believers versus nonbelievers?

Mike Novak: That's a good question, because 40 years ago there was more people going to church. So I think that the people ... And I was 22 years old, 23 years old. And the people that I was [crosstalk 00:33:55]-

Joel Haldeman: Oh, wow.

Mike Novak: ... were all in their 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s.

Joel Haldeman: You were running this thing when you were 22 years old?

Mike Novak: Yes.

Joel Haldeman: Holy cow.

Mike Novak: Yeah, yeah. That's a long story. How many chapters is this [inaudible 00:34:07]? Is this a series? But anyway. Yeah, no. I think that, well, after we came to Orchard Hill, too, I met people and things like that, and I had kids that wanted to go to school and they wanted to earn extra money. I had a lot of people that came to me because I was Christian. They knew that I was Christian from here, and my association with Orchard Hill. So I would say that probably towards the middle of the last year, I'd say one-third of the people were Christian, otherwise were believers but not practicing. And the other third really didn't care one way or the other.

Joel Haldeman: Okay. I would guess in part that's because of who you are that those people were maybe more attracted to being a part of your business.

Mike Novak: Sure.

Joel Haldeman: Did you even feel like that made your decision, influenced your decision one way or the other in hiring?

Mike Novak: I'd be lying if I said no. That's a question that I have to uphold the laws of the United States government. So that's an overt question that I would come out right and ask them something like that. But I could tell by their behaviors. And if they had good families, generally speaking your son or daughter coming out of there that from a practicing Christian family, they're going to have a good work ethic. They're going to have good values. That's not always true. I mean, I've had Christians that I didn't want to work for me and had to fire because it was just ... It's just part of business. You're dealing with a lot of different people. And, again, the leaders' values in the workplace to uphold what's right and wrong. And then Christians make mistakes, too.

Kurt Bjorklund: I worked for a construction company in college.

Mike Novak: I remember this story.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah. And the man who I worked for was a Christian man, went to the church that I had gone to. And he said when he hired me, he said, "You're the first person I've hired from church faith in a long time because the last several people I hired actually gave the church and the faith a bad reputation in the business because they weren't great workers. They weren't easy to work with. They just did not represent well." And so he said, "I'm taking a chance on you." And that's always stuck with me because I think a lot of times people who are of faith don't realize how much their actions are being assessed and equated with the whole of faith in terms of every interaction somebody's saying, "You did that? What are you doing?"

Kurt Bjorklund: And I remember ... This is kind of an aside, but I'm guilty of the same thing. I used to play basketball over here. And there was a guy who came in who was a pastor at another church. And I remember he just got real amped up one day, and nothing crazy at all. But I remember having the thought like, "Man, you're a pastor. You shouldn't do that." And I had probably done that same thing numerous times. And my point again is just it's interesting, I think. We don't always equate or see how substantial those moments like you just are describing are or the negative side of those moments are in business if somebody knows that you're a person of faith.

Mike Novak: And in my business, in the hospitality industry, we have a lot of, again, entry level people, people who are down and out trying to get into it. If you don't believe in a God of second chances ... I'd give somebody a second chance. And if I was wrong, I was wrong. But if not, I saw more people turned around and be able to be launched out of there, whether they were there for the summer or whether they were there to just break away as a single mother. That was, again, very satisfying to see. They got their chance here. They went on to do something else. So if I wouldn't have given that second chance, if coming in late consistently or ... [inaudible 00:38:13] process.

Mike Novak: I mean, again, the process. There was time period of [inaudible 00:38:18] where you had to cut the cord some point. But you had to be able to ... If you didn't believe in them, they didn't believe in you. I couldn't get my vision across. I couldn't get my values across if I didn't believe in them. As time has gone on there's been more and more of that just in the change in generations.

Joel Haldeman: Let me throw out a few ... These are rapid fire questions. To get through a few of these let's each give just a couple of sentence answers. This person writes, "I've made a bad reputation for myself at work. How do I begin to change that?"

Mike Novak: I think that you do it by your behavior. You change. Again, if you were the person that was late all the time, you come in on time consistently. I mean, I think consistency is probably the biggest thing for an employer to watch an employee. Is this a one-time thing? Was this an accident? That type of thing. Or you trade off this, in other words. They may be late because they have to come through town for traffic. And they're on the way home from work. And so they're going to be, depending on the traffic is. But if they're the best server and they can sell you like nobody else can sell you, yeah. I can balance that.

Kurt Bjorklund: And maybe just owning up to where you've made a mistake before. I think people, they'll watch you more closely if you say, "Hey, I know I made a mistake, but it also, then, let's them go, "Oh, you know. And they'll almost start the clock running fresh again because you owned up rather than holding the past things against you with just trying to change behavior.

Mike Novak: Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: How about this. My boss or my company only cares about the bottom line. How can I be a Christian in this environment?

Mike Novak: That's interesting, because I'm sure, and I have also been received that type of thing where they feel that they're a better Christian than you are or they know more theologically than you do. And some things in the workplace just are. And sometimes as the leader you can try to change things to accommodate that particular type of individual. And sometimes it's just not possible. So my thing is move on.

Kurt Bjorklund: The other thing is, nobody who hasn't run the exact business you've run understands the exact dimensions that you understand, meaning I understand something about running a church. I don't understand what it takes to run a restaurant or a brewery. And whatever I understand about leadership, I don't understand your business. And somebody who works, even, in your business and hasn't been in charge of it in that chair still doesn't understand. And it's okay to ... I think you're wise to say, "You know, they can make their critiques but they don't understand the whole even if they're very close to it." And I think that's helpful just to remember.

Joel Haldeman: When is it time to either close a business, start a business, or sell a business?

Mike Novak: That's an interesting question, because my mom said I would know it was time. But I have to say that I probably, just common sense as far as selling my business, which was successful. But it had tough times, too. It was just I knew that it was time. I couldn't take it anymore where I wanted to go at that point and that I knew that I had to be absorbed by a larger organization. So the opportunity presented itself. And that's when I took it. As far as closing business, again, I think it comes back to personal life. You have to balance it. It depends what's going on in your life.

Mike Novak: I just heard of a business, another restaurant that was closing because of an illness. And those were, I feel that no matter what was going to happen to me I was blessed in the sense that I was going on my own terms. I wasn't sick and I wasn't financially distressed, which are the three things that are going to close a business. And sometimes what I always feel bad is, and I never critique other restaurants or other businesses based on my uninformed knowledge sometimes, because I know how hard it is to get up every day and do that.

Mike Novak: And you do it like you guys do. It's a seven-day-a-week job. You may be off Sunday nights or whatever, but you're really on. In today's environment I was very fortunate that we were open five days a week. So I did have some down time, actually, within the business just to keep up with maintenance and the paperwork in that. But I think that closing a business is really hard, because we do identify so much with that and why did it fail. This is a brilliant dream, and it's great. Everybody likes us, but why isn't there ...

Mike Novak: And that's why, again, as a small business owner, you have to reach out to other people and you have to become involved in an organization that comes along side of you either for spiritual purposes or business purposes to help say ... Okay, I got a mentor come in from Pitt. And he said to me ... He was a very, very rough guy, but he was extremely successful and said, "There's nothing wrong with you. What the heck do you want me to tell you here today?" And I said, "Well, look at my books." He says, "It's time for you to get out. You can't go any further here." That type of thing.

Mike Novak: That started that process rolling, but I still loved what I was doing. I was still too young to do it. And, again, I was fortunate. And actually a Christian bought my business. And that was really weird because I felt the presence of God. I kept thinking, "What do my parents think at this time?" They're both gone. But I felt that when he said to me ... The facilitator left the room. He said, "Do you go to church?" And I said, "I do." Well, so am I. Let's get this deal done." So I was, it's kind of cool.

Joel Haldeman: Kurt, what would you say to somebody's who's wondering, "I'm working a full-time job. Should I start this business?"

Kurt Bjorklund: Well, I mean, there's obviously, if there's a passion for it, I don't think you ever go wrong trying something. So I would generally lean towards saying, if you're feeling a desire to do that, probably better to go try and do it than it is to sit in something that you don't want to do. Some people don't want the stress. They would prefer to be able to say, "I go. I go home. Somebody else has the ultimate problem." Because there is more stress if you own something than there is if you work at it, even if you're highly invested. So, yeah. I guess that's not much of an answer. But I would say if you want to do it and it makes sense.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, yeah. I think getting a group of people around you that know you and some people that know that industry a little bit just to give you feedback where you need it, encouragement where you need it. I think that can go a long way.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: My wife and I went to the Pines just a couple of months before it closed. We don't normally go up that way because we drive towards the city whenever we want to go to a restaurant. But we had such a great time. Great service. Our server, she was really great. The food was excellent. So good job in the work that you've done there.

Kurt Bjorklund: We've had many good meals from the Pines.

Joel Haldeman: That's right. And many that you've brought here as well just as a way to bless people. So, yeah. Good job for a lifetime of leading a business and wanting to do it especially to the glory of God.

Kurt Bjorklund: Thank you. Thank you.

Joel Haldeman: Send your questions to Ask a Pastor, and we'd love to look at them in the future.