CBMC Spring 2022 Connector

CONNECTOR THE

SPRING NEWSLETTER

CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MEN’S CONNECTION

IN THIS ISSUE:

SPRING 2022

• NEW MAAS UPDATES • USING RETIREMENT TO SERVE CHRIST • WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?

WWW.CBMC.COM

FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends, Were you like me?

For the first half of my life, I chased success. It was about money and power. But let me tell you, when I achieved what the world defined as success, it didn’t fill the void.

After I became a Christian, the lightbulb went off. I came across a book called Halftime by Bob Buford, which gave me a radically new perspective on success. Bob shared how to find significance in the “halftime” of life rather than the fleeting success that I was caught up in. I was captivated by the thought of living a life of significance. Bob said, “If the first half was a quest for success, the second half is a journey to significance.”

Significance is all about using your knowledge and experience to benefit others.

Today, a new generation has arrived in the marketplace. The Millennials are here. And they are looking to us. They are looking to the generation that went before them. Will they fall into the same trap of chasing success? Or will we be the ones to come alongside them and show them a different, better path?

As men, we MUST stay in the game. We cannot resign our posts, even in retirement. We must not check out. God calls us to His Great Commission, which means there is work to do.

If you are still breathing, God isn’t done with you. CBMC needs you. God has given this ministry an amazing opportunity to make a difference through our events, teams, and 1-on-1 discipling relationships to help men grow in their faith and share their faith with others. The next generation is counting on us. Our Young Professionals around the nation need older, wiser mentors who will lead them toward a life of significance.

It’s time to suit up and get in the game.

See you on the field,

Are you sitting on the sidelines of life? Have you taken yourself out of the game?

2022 BOARD MEMBERS Dirk Block (Chairman)

Dave Melin

Roger Emerson

David Meyers

Jeff Goldfarb

Gary Kirschman*

Steve Goss (Secretary)

Todd Schimmelpfennig (Co-Vice Chairman)

Don Hargadon (Treasurer) Marty Hepp Todd Hopkins

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Mike Winter* *Staff Advisory Member

David Meyers CBMC President P.S. Your financial partnership means we can reach more business and professional men in the marketplace with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Your gift to Vision 2030 is doubled today and helps us reach our God-given goal of 1 million men connected and 100K men engaged in discipleship and evangelism by 2030.

MAAS EXTENDING CBMC’S REACH AROUND THE GLOBE

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hat comes to mind when you hear the words of Jesus Christ’s Great Commission, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…”

(Matthew 28:19-20)?

We might envision missionaries boarding airplanes or ships, traveling to distant lands to present the Gospel message to people in different cultures, speaking unfamiliar languages. It’s a big world, and countless millions of people have yet to be reached.

Many of us in CBMC understand long-distance travel often isn’t necessary to participate in the “plentiful harvest” Jesus described in Matthew 9:37. The “mission field” might be as near as the next cubicle, the office down the hall, a conference room, a restaurant, or the house across the cul-de-sac.

In any case, the world is very different from when Jesus gave His followers their final command before His ascension. The world is now inhabited by billions of people.

Methods for communicating the Gospel have multiplied dramatically. And technology has made it possible to “go and make disciples of all nations” in ways that Peter, John, Paul and the other apostles could never have imagined.

Take CBMC’s Marketplace Ambassador Advancement System (MAAS) for example.

Its inception traces back to 2012, when then-CBMC President Lee Truax and his team began putting together a digital strategy for reaching the next generation and making CBMC resources available to a wider audience.

MAAS has been developed into an interactive, electronic platform that takes CBMC’s tools to a new level of functionality and accessibility. Initially, MAAS consisted

of offerings such as: CBMC’s “10 Attributes of a Marketplace Ambassador,” which focus on key biblical elements for growing spiritually and serving God fruitfully in the workplace, and the ministry’s unique disciplemaking tool, Operation Timothy. Verbal content was supplemented with practical videos to help participants understand and apply principles to their own lives.

In 2018, the Living Proof Adventure interactive video training was added, helping participants understand principles for relational or lifestyle evangelism. Then in 2021, Becoming a Spiritual Reproducer was introduced to teach critical steps for fulfilling Jesus’ command to “make disciples” who then become equipped to make disciples.

At the beginning of the year, MAAS became a true global system with the addition of Operation Timothy Global – the same disciplemaking materials being offered online for the first time in French, Swahili and Portuguese. Work also is underway to make OT available in Spanish and Arabic later in 2022.

Adding to the global impact of the impressive array of MAAS teaching and training resources is “Monday continued

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Manna,” a weekly workplace meditation that CBMC International began to produce and distribute around the world in 1997.

Consisting of brief, focused discussions about everyday marketplace topics and issues from a biblical perspective, accompanied by questions for group discussion and personal reflection, Monday Manna is translated each week into more than 20 languages. Monday Manna is used internationally for weekly Connect3 curriculum.

MAAS now offers it in five of those – French, Portuguese, Korean, Swahili, and English. CBMC International is working toward adding other languages later this year, including Spanish and German. For USA teams, Monday Manna is ideal for weekly Connect3 content.

Mark Hofert, a member of CBMC’s staff team that has collaborated to give MAAS its new global scope, cited numerous advantages of presenting these ministry resources on a digital platform.

“While Operation Timothy Classic and Signature remain available in printed form, their content also can be accessed on smartphones, tablets and laptop computers, as well as the small group Living Proof Adventure training,” he said. “This has particular appeal for young business and professional people strongly oriented toward digital technology.”

The multiple-language accessibility of Operation Timothy also enables a Paul (the disciplemaker) to use a different language from the Timothy (the person being discipled). Hofert said he knows of a CBMC member in the U.S. currently discipling a man in France, using different translations seamlessly.

Hofert noted that in 2030, CBMC will observe the 100th anniversary of its founding. With that milestone in sight, goals have been established to have one million men connected to CBMC by that time, with 100,000 actively engaged in its two-fold mission of presenting Jesus Christ to business and professional men, and developing them to carry out the Great Commission.

wherever they are in the world, to become more fruitful and to continue growing in their own faith.”

CBMC President David Meyers presented the new global ministry capabilities of MAAS at a CBMC International leadership conference in Norway earlier this year, and the response was very enthusiastic.

Easy accessibility to this digital platform of resources is critical. To access any of these offerings, along with a rich library of written and video content related to Bible study, spiritual growth and living out one’s faith in the marketplace, users can either go to advance.cbmc.com, or to CBMC’s official website, cbmc.com, and click the Advancement System link.

“MAAS Global will be an important tool in that process,” he said. “We want to see people involved with CBMC,

HAVE A STORY TO SHARE? WE’D LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT WHAT GOD IS DOING IN YOUR AREA. EMAIL HMCAFEE@CBMC.COM.

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THINKING OF RETIREMENT AS THE NEXT OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE CHRIST

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hen it comes to the “retirement dream,” we must ask, “Whose dream is it?” It may be the American dream—but is it God’s? For some people, retirement has replaced the return of Christ as the “blessed hope,” the major future event that we anticipate. (Try doing a Bible study on the subject of retirement—I guarantee you, it won’t take long!)

When a man retires at sixty-five, studies show his chances of having a fatal heart attack immediately double. Our minds and bodies

weren’t made for an arbitrary day of shutdown. Nowhere in Scripture do we see God calling healthy people to stop working. Of course, it’s perfectly legitimate to work without pay. It’s your option to give labor to ministry and volunteer work rather than to your present job. But as long as God has us in this world, He has work for us to do. The hours may be shorter, the work different, the pay lower or nonexistent. But He doesn’t want us to take still productive minds and bodies and permanently lay them on a beach, lose them on a golf course, or lock them in a dark living room watching game shows.

If you’ve saved for retirement and no longer need to work for pay, then donate your time working for the church, the poor or underprivileged children. And don’t forget the great opportunity you have to become a self-supported missionary for two or five or ten or twenty years. If you’re still here, God isn’t done with you.

In fact, your most fruitful years of ministry may be ahead. That’s true whether you’re in a retirement home or anywhere else. God has a unique ministry for you here and now. Don’t kill time, any more than you would burn money. Instead, invest it in eternity. continued

Words by Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, www.epm.org. Photo by Aaron Burden.

John Piper has done much to address this topic. Below are excerpts from John’s book Rethinking Retirement, which you can read online for free: “There are different ways of dying. And there are different ways of living just before we die. But for the Christian, all of them—the final living and the dying—are supposed to make God look glorious. All of them are supposed to show that Christ—not this world—is our supreme Treasure.

So finishing life to the glory of Christ means using whatever strength and eyesight and hearing and mobility and resources we have left to treasure Christ and in that joy to serve people— that is, to seek to bring them

with us into the everlasting enjoyment of Christ. Serving people, and not ourselves, as the overflow of treasuring Christ makes Christ look great. …Finishing life to the glory of Christ means resolutely resisting the typical American dream of retirement. It means being so satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ that we are set free from the cravings that create so much emptiness and uselessness in retirement.

our lives, we must be satisfied in him. He must be our Treasure.

And the life that we live must flow from this all-satisfying Christ. And the life that flows from the soul that lives on Jesus is a life of love and service. This is what will make Christ look great. When our hearts find their rest in Christ, we stop using other people to meet our needs, and instead we make ourselves servants to meet their needs.

This is so contrary to the unregenerate human heart that it stands out as something beautiful to be followed or something convicting to be crucified.”

FAMILY CONNECTION

…If we are going to make Christ look glorious in the last years of

JULY 28-31, 2022

FAMILY CONNECTION RIDGECREST, NC RIDGECREST CONFERENCE CENTER

JULY 28-31, 2022 RIDGECREST CONFERENCE CENTER

RIDGECREST, NC

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WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?

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od speaks many times about being obedient to His commands, but I’ve never seen where He commands us to make excuses. So, why do I hear so many excuses when I ask people to obey God’s command to make disciples (Matt 28:19)?

I’m reminded of the story in Numbers 13-14 about Moses sending the twelve spies into the Promised Land to check it out, so the children of Israel could invade it.

The spies were impressed by what they saw: bountiful crops, a beautiful land, and … giants! Rather than ask God for His help in defeating the giants, ten of the spies made excuses.

Only Caleb and Joshua were willing to accept the challenge. The people all sided with the ten, so God assigned the people to die in the desert over the next 40 years. Caleb and Joshua were the only adults

who were privileged to enter the Promised Land!

Num 13:30-31 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”

Num 26:65 For the LORD had said of them, “They shall surely die in the wilderness.” And not a man was left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. The people of Israel missed out on the blessings because they looked at their fears instead of asking God what He wanted them to do.

He has already told us in Matthew 28 to make disciples! We know that’s God’s plan! The Apostle Paul tells us

in Phil 4:13, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. So, what makes you give excuses when you are asked to take someone through Operation Timothy?

What about asking God to help you do it? Why miss out on the blessing of seeing someone else’s transformation, under your mentorship?

Has it ever occurred to you that you might grow in the process, as well?

We talk about Operation Timothy transforming lives two at a time.

Both the Paul and the Timothy grow in the process because it is about the relationship between two people who are unique, and their stories impact each other.

How about committing yourself to ask God who He wants you to take through Operation Timothy this year?

Then, trust Him to bring the right person, and step out, trusting Him to guide you through the process!

Words by Eldon Kibbey, Area Director of CBMC Indiana. This year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Operation Timothy. There’s no better time to invest in the process of disciplemaking! Visit connect.cbmc.com/ot50 for more info.

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CBMC’S TWOFOLD MISSION: TO PRESENT JESUS CHRIST AS SAVIOR AND LORD TO BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL MEN, AND TO DEVELOP CHRISTIAN BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL MEN TO CARRY OUT THE GREAT COMMISSION.

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2022 UPCOMING CBMC EVENTS CHECK CBMC.COM/EVENTS FOR REGISTRATION DETAILS

CBMC Fort Lauderdale Lunch

May 17th Fort Lauderdale, FL Business Connection Luncheon

May 18th Lincoln, NE CBMC Business Series Event

May 19th Sauk Rapids, MN Young Professionals Retreat

May 20th Underwood, IN Man Up: How God Makes Men

May 20th Mobile, AL The Confluence

May 26th Plano, TX

Chattanooga First Thursday Luncheon

June 2nd Chattanooga, TN

Adirondack CBMC Breakfast

June 16th Glens Falls, NY

Mentor Link Up

4th Annual Couples Dinner Cruise

June 3rd Santa Ana, CA

June 22nd Cleveland, OH

Couple’s Event

Leaders Above Webinar

June 3rd Deerfield Beach, FL

June 29th Virtual Event

Hot Dogs at the Hank

Lunch and Learn – CBMC Peer Advisory Groups

June 9th Mobile, AL CBMC Greater Omaha Golf Tournament

June 13th Omaha, NE

July 12th Omaha, NE Family Connection

July 28–31 Ridgecrest, NC