We recently connected with Rick Boxx and have shared our conversation below.
Rick, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My life was changed by a Bank President who actually used the Bible and its principles to run the bank we were hired to turnaround. I was intrigued that the book I learned as a child was being used in practical ways in business. Later after being caught up in a riptide in Hawaii and God miraculously saved me I decided I wanted to learn all I could about the Bible and how it could be used even more for business. I searched for any organizations that were teaching these biblical principles, with very little success. After selling a bank I was part owner in I felt God called me to leave banking to start teaching business leaders how to integrate their faith and the Bible into their business life. I witnessed how a Biblical approach had changed lives and had transformed the entire workplace and I wanted to help others have that kind of experience as well.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a child of God, a husband of 37 years, a father of three, and a grandfather to four. My career spans from being a CPA, a multiple time entrepreneur, a banker, and for the last twenty three years a founder and CEO of a nonprofit ministry focused on helping business leaders integrate their faith and the Bible into their business or workplace. We help change lives, transform workplaces, and impact communities for Christ by training business leaders in God’s way of conducting business. We do this through Conferences and events, content, and community groups. Our events are leveraged to introduce business leaders to the concept that God has a plan and purpose for their work life. We teach and inspire these leaders with Biblical principles through daily content that includes a daily devotional on 200 radio stations, through broadcast email, and reading plans on the Bible app. Finally, we help business leaders practice their faith by helping them have a learning community that meets monthly. These groups use high quality video training content, discussion questions, and a scalable format to connect these leaders to groups of like-minded people who desire to please God with their work.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
In the early years I was a pioneer in a whole new industry and didn’t even realize it. Trying to find a way to survive was a roller coaster for years. There were many times when I was near closing the business. Like the time I prayed that I desperately needed $1,750 by Wednesday to continue. On Wednesday a business owner I never met drove all the way from St. Louis to Kansas City without an appointment that resulted in him hiring me to develop a plan for his business. He left me a deposit of $1,750. Or the time when I misunderstood what it meant to put God first. I assumed putting the ministry first was putting God first until i had burned through most of my retirement and my wife was livid. I finally had to tell God that if He wanted me to close the doors I would but if He wanted me to continue I was willing to surrender the whole business to Him, but it would take $3,000 to cover the current outstanding bills. I committed that unless He provided that $3,000 I was going to shut down. That day a friend who didn’t know what was going on asked if I would wait for him while he went off to pray for a few minutes. When he came back he handed me a check for $3,000 and said God wants you to continue.
Have you ever had to pivot?
At our ministry’s fifteen year anniversary I went on a prayer retreat. That day I believed that God revealed that He didn’t want me looking to the former things, He wanted me to be open to something new. Soon after a business leader recommended that I change our brand from Integrity Resource Center to Unconventional Business Network. At first I wasn’t interested until he urged me to pray about it. Over the next couple of weeks I had two other stakeholders encourage me to change the brand. We ended up pivoting not only with a new brand, but we also realized that we needed to build a network of Christian business leaders that also had opportunities to gather regularly in small groups to learn and grow together.
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