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GodWorx helps equip all Christians to influence their workplace and integrate their faith, by making disciples and unleashing the kingdom of God wherever they are.
Hi, everyone. My name is Carrie Whitcher, and you too can be a marketplace multiplier because marketplace multipliers equip all Christians to influence their workplace and integrate their faith by making disciples and unleashing the kingdom of God wherever they are. Welcome to another episode of the Marketplace Podcast. I'm Jeff Clark, and I'm the associate head basketball coach at Indiana Wesleyan University. Today, we're gonna be joined by doctor Eric Ireland.
He serves the associate vice president of Kingswood Extended, where they've developed a marketplace multiplier certificate. And this is very exciting because so often we hear of people who have a heartbeat to do this work of marketplace multiplication, but they struggle with the next steps of what it means to actually steward influence for Christ, and they've they've developed a certificate that's available to anybody who wants to grow in knowledge and insight and what that means. You'll hear more from doctor Ireland about that, but you can right now go to kingswood.edu backslash register to find out more. We're joined now by doctor Eric Ireland. And, doctor Ireland, why don't you just start by sharing your heartbeat for marketplace multipliers?
I'm really excited for this movement across the Wesleyan denomination and far beyond, I'm sure, because for too long we have thought about ministry as something done by clergy people. This is not a problem just for us and our tribe or the evangelical church or the North American church. This is a problem for Catholics and Episcopalians and all these groups worldwide. And I think it's, it's high time that the entirety of the kingdom of god get involved in ministry. Now you play a unique role in that.
You're in a higher ed context. So what is the role of higher ed in solving this? Yeah. I think I think Christian higher education in particular has a, a deep history and a rich history along this idea, of course, long before the thought or the term marketplace multipliers was coined for a 100, 150 years in North America in particular, Christian Higher Education has thought of itself as a launching pad for ministers and especially in liberal arts institutions, they've got departments for English and for business and for medicine. They're not launching clergy people only.
They have a division for religion, but they're launching people into ministry in all of the ways that, lay and clergy people can be involved in ministry. Of course, that, drifts, I think, and sometimes Christian higher ed in particular is, is going to suffer from this where we don't think of ourselves as discipleship opportunities and discipleship boot camps. I think that's really the sweet spot. If Christian Higher Ed realizes the incredibly rich environments they provide through their faculty, through extracurricular environments, through residential experiences, through a leadership development of student, student leaders. These are sanctifying contexts.
That's a term that doctor Lennox, our president, coined several years ago, I think even before he was our president. He's been Christian higher ed for decades, and he was observing that happen in his ministry, how important it is for our schools to think of themselves as discipleship for marketplace multiplication. And it's super fun sitting in this role to see how that's popping up in different ways at different places. So I know I coach basketball, and we talk about I am 3rd and how that comes to life. At Indiana Wesleyan, they use the word world changers.
At Houghton, there's some things popping up, and it's really coming to life in different ways. And at Kingswood, you guys have very intentionally built a certificate. Can you talk a little bit about what you've built and how it works and how it can benefit people? Yeah. Kingswood is weird among our, Wesleyan Higher Educational Institutions and, across other higher ed in North America.
It's a bible college and so we've traditionally thought of ourselves as pumping out ministers and ministers only, but there's a rich heritage among faculty in our schools and those we work with across North America because our school can be involved and is involved in lay preparation for the ministry as well and so the way we have recently conceptualized that is through a Marketplace Multiplier Certificate. It is studied not for a degree, they're not 3 credit courses, they are closer to 1 or 1 and a half if you're really to analyze all the work done, but we have 5 courses in administer marketplace multiplication certificate that prepares anybody who's at home discipling their family, who's at work discipling their, boss, their subordinates, or their peers, or coworkers, or the CEO, the CFO running an organization, or the doctor running a dentistry office who, realizes that they are stewarding a congregation of sorts where they are. Such people are would be really well served by studying these 5 studying in these 5 courses of the marketplace multiplication certificate. Yep. I love the heartbeat of what you're talking about because what we run up against so much is Christians who get a a spark in their heart for this, and they're ready to go.
But they don't know how to implement it. They don't have a a depth of knowledge on what it looks like, and you're trying to provide for that specifically. So why don't you talk a little bit about anybody can sign up for this. When they do, what will they get on the other side? We even find, even in a Christian disciplining environment like Wesleyan Higher Education, you may still need this kind of help because you've probably been taught by excellent believers of deep faith what it means to study biology, but you still might not know what that means to disciple as you are being an MD.
Right? These are these are skills that you need to pick up even if you have a Christian worldview. You still need to be discipled and have a disciple. So that's what we've done. The courses, they start off with thinking about work and the bible.
That's the first title. I think it's important that the marketplace multiplier realize that, yes, the curse has touched the work you do. In particular, in the garden and the the condemnation, the curse that comes to Adam, right, is there is now toil and work. We do it, but it's rough, and we definitely feel that, lots of us, when we get up with the alarm and think, I've got to go to the office. Work has become a 4 letter word, but it is a means by which God intends to redeem the world.
It's one of them. And so, work in the Bible just helps a person think through that whole thing, how, God redeems work. It is not a 4 letter word. It is a place where we can find joy and meaning and certainly ministry. Of course the role of leadership is super important for every Christian leader and disciple maker.
So, we have a a course on what it is to lead as a Christian. And then I think the other one that I'm most excited about is the models of marketplace multiplication course. It's usually the last one a person will take, and it helps a person think. When I was introduced to this idea, I thought, wow. There's such promise for the Christian business owner or CEO who gets to call the shots and say, you know what?
We're gonna close on a Sunday. Right? There are all these ideas we have about what makes a business Christian. They keep the Sabbath or they donate a tenth of their profits somewhere. But what it means to disciple in the marketplace for most of us is using the influence we have as a parent, as a, an employee, as a coworker, and, the models of marketplace ministry course helps a person think far beyond, the models that come to mind and I think it really helps a person break outside of the box to think through and discuss those models with each other.
What you're saying so closely matches the heartbeat of this movement because this isn't for the elite Christian who leads many people from on stage. All of us have opportunity to influence others for Christ. But many of us don't know how. We have a passion for it. But since we don't have a model for it, it can be awkward.
We can avoid it, but you guys are providing a practical way for people to go deeper. So as you're saying, this is for any Christian who has this heartbeat. So why don't you finish by just telling us let's say someone's listened to this. They have a a spark now. They're saying, I'm interested.
I wanna I wanna know more. Where should they go to sign up? What link would you send them to so they could find their way to this certificate? This certificate and our other noncredit offerings are available by going to kingswood.edu/register. Our whole catalog of courses are then available, and you can find the course that matches you.
Self paced courses can be started anytime by anybody, so they're always available, these courses are. Well, doctor Ireland, thanks so much not only for coming on, but also for providing this resource and and making available for so many who have a heartbeat for this and just have practical tools to grow in-depth and knowledge and then hopefully implement it in meaningful ways where there's deeper influence for Christ in the places where they live every single day. It's been a joy. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Marketplace Multipliers podcast.
For more information, go to w ww.marketplacemultipliers.com. Please like and subscribe to this podcast and share with others who may benefit. And remember, you too can integrate your faith and influence your workplace for Christ.