Transcript: Building Trust Through Accountability: Lessons from a Global Workforce // Jos Snoep, Bible League International

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

"Building Trust Through Accountability: Lessons from a Global Workforce“

October 14, 2024

Jos Snoep

Intro: Are you ready to transform your leadership and see your organization flourish like never before? Well, in today's episode we're uncovering leadership insights that focus on building community within an international workforce. We've got some incredible insights lined up from a top leader who has a clear vision. Trust me, you don't want to miss this conversation with the CEO of Bible League International, Jos Snoep. It's packed with the kind of wisdom that could improve the way you lead today.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of Road to Flourishing. My passion is to equip Christian leaders like you to cultivate engaged, flourishing workplaces. This fall we’ve dedicated our Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast to one of the most-powerful drivers of flourishing cultures, and that’s inspirational leadership. Join us as we dive into the insightful conversations with top leaders who will provide you with tools and inspiration to grow and excel in your leadership journey.

I’m delighted to welcome Jos Snoep to the podcast today. Jos is the president of Bible League International.

And throughout our conversation, you'll hear Jos talk about the way they integrate core values into their organization by putting resources behind them, the importance of giving employees Scripture-engagement opportunities at work, four keys to building trust that is essential for effective leadership, and effective approaches to implementing strategy and continuous improvement.

I think you're going to love this interview with Jos Snoep. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey. Don't wait. This fall is a perfect time to gather insights from your employees to assess the health of your workplace culture and get your reports before Christmas. As today’s guest highlights, it’s important to listen to all voices to foster a sense of community, and humbly listen to employee feedback because it's critical for continuous improvement. Are you hungry to transform your culture? Well, visit workplaces.org today to learn more and to start your journey to becoming a flourishing workplace.

And hello to our new listeners. And thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

Let me tell you just a little bit more about Jos Snoep. He's the president and CEO of Bible League International, and Bible League International serves the under-resourced church, with Bibles and training to transform lives worldwide through God's Word. Their global headquarters is just south of Chicago. Jos joined Bible League International in 2005 as a fund raiser in the Netherlands. He was quickly promoted to the country director role and then executive director for Europe before coming the president and moving to the United States.

So, here’s my conversation with Jos Snoep.

Jos, it’s great to have you back on the podcast, and I’m looking forward to our conversation today.

Jos Snoep: Thanks, Al, for having me back. I always appreciate the invitation, and I've been looking forward to it as well.

Al: So, let's talk a little bit about your work and, you know, having access to the Bible is certainly, and learning how to study it, let’s just put that in there, is really life transformative. And share a recent story of the work of Bible League International and how your ministry is making a difference in a maybe an underserved area of the world where people are hungry for God's Word.

Jos: Yeah, thanks. And I really appreciate this question. You know, put the transformative story central in our mission impact.

I’ll share a story of a recent trip to Cali in Colombia that I did. Some of our listeners might know that as the place where the Cali cartel was very powerful. This is a transformational story of a beautiful servant of God who went fatefully into areas affected by gangs, by guerrillas, you know, drugs, and abuse. And despite those many hardships, this guy, this brother, persevered by the power of the Holy Spirit in a place that was once called the “Curve of the Devil.” And actually, today, this same curve, this place in this community is called the “Curve of God.” Because of his work and the work of the Holy Spirit, it's now a thriving community, and it's serving, and it's bringing the Good News into this huge, huge community.

And this is a guy that puts God's Word central in everything that he does. He provides the Bible studies. He provides the Scripture. He gathers people around the Word and does evangelism and discipleship with them. This guy suffered. He truly did a sacrifice.

And the reason why it stood out to me was that it's an example of what Jesus says in Mark 8, that, you know, “If you want to follow Me, you have to pick up your cross.” And this guy lives it out. It's the humility that really was an example to me, the humility that even his willing to take sacrifice for the good of the Gospel. So just a really powerful encounter with the ministry for me, again, and life giving and motivating.

Al: Yeah. Wow. I love that story. Yeah. The transformation of the Gospel in communities, that's a great example. The “Curve of the Devil” now called the “Curve of God.”

Jos: Amen.

Al: And for all of us, yeah, to deny ourselves, to pick up our cross, and to follow Jesus in the process. Amen.

Well, as I’ve gotten to know you and your organization over the years, I’m struck by how intentional you are as a leader, Jos, and I really appreciate that—intentional in terms of valuing people and the team building that you do and also creating a sense of community within your organization. And as you do that, you lift up the abilities of others. In fact, I look at your top 10 items, and people feel like they really have the opportunity to use their skills in their job. They have the opportunities to use their spiritual gifts in their job, and you're calling those things out in people. So, share with us the core values that you emphasize at Bible League International and how these core values influence your day-to-day leadership in the organization.

Jos: Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to make sure that we all understand that we are far from perfect in that. We make a lot of mistakes, and we do a lot of learning. But yeah, we try to be intentional to let values not just be words. And that applies to everyone that is involved. Whether you're a board member or a volunteer or a staff member, whatever you do in the organization, these values apply to you. And we have what we call our core-values story, and it's basically six elements. It's prayer, it's calling, service, unity, integrity, and vision. And I can talk about all six of them, but, really, what we say with that is, these six words form a story of our ministry, but they also should form the story of every individual that is part of the ministry. So how do we make sure that we apply these values in the life of our collective, but also in the life of the individuals engaged in the ministry? So prayer is one of those values, the first one in that list. And it's one of those things that I think everybody agrees to it. You know, everybody agrees to, yeah, we need to pray. But how do you apply it? is a second thing.

It's not only a value; we also integrated into what we call strategic drivers of the ministry. And what that means is that we put resource to our core values. If we don't invest time, money, resource, place into our core values, then they're worth nothing, and then they're just words on paper. So every time we look at our core values, we look at, how do we apply resource towards this?

So for prayer, for example, we have allocated a team, across departmental team, that facilitates prayer in the organization collectively. As well, this team ensures that people are prayed for. Leaders are actually receiving invitations to be prayed over, to be prayed for by this team. We allocate volunteer resource to prayer for all the requests that we are receiving from our community. But also in meetings and in conferences, we allocate time and space to be in prayer together, to worship. And this can go as far as allocating 25 to 30% of a week's conference to prayer. So it's a significant resource that we try to allocate to these core values.

So, we try to do that with all of them and really make them part of the strategy and always ask ourselves, with any strategy that we do, are we representing this core-values story in what we are about to do here?

Al: Wow. So, I like that, Jos. Wow. So, you’re putting resources to your core values, and, yeah, otherwise, they are just words on the wall. I think that's something for us all to think about.

So, you're also fostering community and building teamwork, and we have to acknowledge that you lead an international organization, interacting with employees and serving people in different cultures, languages, life experiences. I mean, it's truly international. And some of our listeners are also leaders of international organizations who might be able to benefit from your experience and have also found in terms of just diversity, our international leaders understand it more so perhaps than others. So what are some of the key things that you've learned in the past few years from your field staff as you've worked with them across borders, across continents, even? What sort of changes or challenges do your field staff face that might be surprising that you've heard? Or what are some of the organizational practices that really help all areas of your ministry feel connected and then part of one vision?

Jos: Yeah. This is such a relevant question, Al. Our main concern is that in all of that, we truly listen to all the voices in our organization, and that, driven by the mission, of course, that we gear our ministry to ensure that we serve those on the field in a most efficient and the effective way. And so as we have that vision and as we try to implement it, we started understanding that there's a gap in what we said, we hoped it to be, this organization where this information flows back and forward really easily. And we discovered, no, it doesn't do that, because there is hurdles in our organization that prevent that to happen in its fullness, which means that you're missing out on ideas and solutions and motivations that field staff has, that leaders on the ground have, and it just doesn’t come into your organization. So, we’ve done a lot of change in our organization to ensure that the voices from all over are being heard, but that, then, as a reply to that, we have invited them to become part of the solution.

And that sounds really simple, but you say, what are some organizational practices that help all the areas of our ministry to feel connected? It's really about participation and about, you know, them being able to have a voice and have some agency and some power to make decisions. So we've gone through a long process of making sure those leaders are empowered to make decisions, they are positioned to participate, to let their voice hear. But also, we have learned other teams to be silent and to maybe listen a little bit more than they used to do in the past, because now, suddenly, this local leader is telling them what to do rather than a top leader or an executive leader in the organization. So it, basically, shifts your model, which, you know, takes a lot of time for people to learn. So, we're trying to create that togetherness in decision making, that decision making in the community rather than top down by individuals.

Al: Yeah. So, I love this. And this is for our listeners. Okay, listeners, the leaders, are you listening to all voices in your organization? And I think that's a challenge for us and, you know, to make sure that voices are being heard.

Now, okay. Jos, I’ve got to ask you this question: that sounds like it's going to take a lot longer to some leaders to listen to all voices. And, you know, you've got goals, and you want to accomplish things. And so what’s the benefit of listening to all voices versus just listening to fewer and charging ahead?

Jos: I think there is the element of believing that, you know, if you have a couple of people making decisions, you go quicker, and you could just steam ahead. That might be true in the short term. And I think on the long term, if you truly build a community where people listen to each other and you allow people to make decisions, then you have a longer road to walk on, and you really empower people to be part of that.

So, what I would say there is have patience and keep working at it, but also be very intentional about there might be leaders in your organization that are not used to work like that. And if you truly want to change your organization, those people either have to change how they approach their work or you might have to change something in terms to really allow these local leaders, these field leaders, to be able to speak up, because you can't compromise on the idea. It just doesn't work if you compromise on the idea.

Al: And those are your front-line people who actually are experiencing the ministry and doing the work. And so you're serving those front-line leaders by listening to them, for sure. Yeah. So, yeah.

So, as Christian leaders, and this is one of the things that I've really felt over time is that, as it says in First Peter 5:2, we’re to shepherd the flock that God has entrusted to us, and whether it's our staff or people served by the organization. Bible League International is training people and Bible study and planting churches. So are there some habits and practices that you encourage your staff in as far as including some aspect of discipleship or even Christian fellowship as part of their experience as an employee working at Bible League?

Jos: Yeah. So since a couple of years we have a leader of people and culture in our ministry, and that has really been the task, to focus mainly on the question you just asked. And our mission statement is about life transformation through the Word of God. And we believe that is not just for those that are impacted by our programs, but it should be an experience that everybody has, including our staff. So when you work here and you're not transformed by the Word of God, something is wrong, isn't it? So we've started Scripture-engagement opportunities for our staff to dive deeper into specific discipleship issues that we believe blesses the ministry but also blesses the staff in their personal growth. So we try to approach leadership issues and ministry issues in a way that people can engage with Scripture and they can also learn about certain topics in the organization that are relevant.

So, one of our core values is unity. And in an organization where we have a lot of diversity, that unity, it's not easy coming. You've got to work at it. So we offered a class on conflict management, or conflict resolution, and peacemaking. So this class was based on engaging in Scripture. So we're not just happy with a class on peacemaking; we want it to be a Scripture experience so that we can first study the Word of God, and then, we can think, based on that, on the topic of peacemaking and reconciliation with our teams. So we're trying to do that with various relevant themes in our organization, where we really build a Scripture-engagement experience around the topic that we want to address in our organization.

So that's been an exciting journey, and we've heard some good feedback on that, you know, just people to be able to sit in small groups and do Bible study in our organization, I think, has added value for people to be here.

Al: Yeah. So, if people aren't transformed by the Word of God themselves, and that's your mission, yeah, it's time to address that. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And so your Scripture engagement, that's something for your employees to engage and be part of. Yeah. That's fantastic. For our listeners, I’m sure we all experience that the level of Bible literacy coming in as employees to Christian workplaces has dropped over the last couple of generations. And so to be sure that our employees are experiencing this transformation is an important step.

You know, Jos, in our work at Best Christian Workplaces, we know that an inspirational leader builds trust, which is essential for any organization that's going to flourish. And in your experience, how do leaders earn and nourish trust in the workplace? Certainly, there are seasons when leaders have to make hard decisions. Sometimes that erodes trust people feel. But what's the role of trust in these hard leadership experiences that you've experienced over time?

Jos: Oh, the role of trust is critical, I would say. It is something that cannot be missed. If there is no trust, there is always questioning and suspicion. And just a distrust or a mistrust with anything that you do, it just slows you down incredibly. So the trust is critical in the running of a ministry organization.

Yeah, leaders have to be, I believe, people of humility and integrity and a deep care for their people. And those are all really important ingredients for trust. And of course, with that needs to come a deep passion for the mission and aligning the team, the collective of individuals, towards adding the most value to the mission.

I think that creates tension sometimes because, you know, when hard decisions need to be made, that is where that's really played out. And I would say hard decisions are and will always be hard. You know, the hard decisions don't necessarily become easier when there is trust. I just believe that hard decisions, hard seasons, are moments where trust is tested even more and maybe even build out through that season. So we try to be consistent in our humility and our integrity, in our care, in our mission focus.

I'll give an example. We just worked through a harder decision in our own ministry. Before the decisions that we made, we involved the appropriate people in the conversation, and we took a lot of time to listen to them and to make sure that our decisions are fair; that through the process we care for the people, even when it might affect them really dramatically; and we want to make sure that we aligned with the mission. And so, you know, how do you nurture, how do you foster trust in that season, I think, is by showing that consistency and allowing people to understand that you are making decisions that are fair, that are with care, that are aligning to the mission.

And what we did was we even created this moment of accountability for our decisions, where we actually sat down with small groups. I actually, personally, sat down with small groups in our organization, making sure that every single staff member had an opportunity to ask questions about the harder changes that we made in our organization. And I think that ultimately also contributes to the level of trust in your organization, that you're willing to be accountable as a leader towards anybody in your organization. Because I think that the worst thing that we can do as leaders is that we try to control people and try to control how they think. What we can do is that we are accountable about what we thought as leaders and that we show people, what's the basis of my decision here? And then people can make up their own mind, you know, in terms of how they want to participate. But I think those kind of processes build trust over time.

Al: Amen. Jos, thanks.

You mentioned how a lack of trust slows things down. That kind of gets back to that previous conversation point we had earlier is that, yeah, a lack of trust will slow things down; a deep trust will actually speed things up. But, yeah, key elements of trust—I love your points of humility, integrity, and deep care for people. Those are three really great points. But then, your follow up is, especially in hard times, your visibility. And first of all, so you describe having meetings with small groups of employees. That's visibility to start with, but also accountability, as you point out. And so, yeah, as leaders in hard times, hiding in your office is not the—it's not going to help.

Jos: That's very counterproductive. And I think the visibility and the willingness to just listen to questions—you know, your opinion might not even change through those questions because, you know, you've tried to be fair and humble throughout the process. But just the fact that you listen, you answer questions, that you give people the understanding of what have you based your decisions on is very helpful.

Al: Yeah. Thanks.

Well, Jos, you lead an organization with a long history. I mean, you've had a long history. And as you’ve articulated, the vision is very clear. And one quality of your organization that Giselle Jenkins, our Best Christian Workplace consultant that’s worked with you, has mentioned is your ability to adapt your strategies to what people need. And you get great scores on your sustainable-strategy questions. So you're clear on vision, and that's been clear in our conversation. And you don't confuse strategy with vision, so you're able to adapt to changes. So what are some of the timeless principles of leadership that are still going forward and still true as you go forward in these past few seasons? And is there an example of an area where you and your leadership team have adopted your strategies as you experience changes in either global realities and local needs? And I think everybody sees, yeah, changes are happening faster than they've ever happened before. So being able to adapt and be innovative and resilient is really more important now than ever. What are some of your experiences?

Jos: Yeah. So I think this, you know, circles back to our core values and the leadership philosophy that we have, things that are consistent through a lot of times of change. And they focus more on, I think, culture and behaviors rather than strategies and tactics. So you can change a strategy, you can change a tactic, you can change how you do things, but let's not change why we do things. We're still doing things because here's the core values, here's the mission statement, here's the leadership philosophy that we have with one another. So extra pressure on the organization should never change our behaviors in prayer and in allowing our people to be engaged in Scripture and be transformed by the Word of God. So to build that consistency in our organization has been really important in the last couple of years. And I think it has helped people and even some of our managers to go back to, well, we are going through this change, but here is why we are making it. It aligns with our core values. It aligns with our philosophies as a ministry.

One of the examples I could mention here, a little bit of in a different area in our ministry is in the area of fundraising and development work, where a couple of years ago we drafted this philosophy around fundraising. And if I have to summarize it to you, Al, really, what the philosophy says is, treat others the same way you want to be treated.

Al: I've heard that before. I don't know. Somebody said that. Yeah, right.

Jos: That's right. I know somebody who said that as well. Might be the same person. And so, what we've done is we did a big assessment on our fundraising tools that we use in our ministry, and we came to the conclusion that we had tactics in place that were violating this philosophy.

One of these tactics, for example, was telemarketing, calling people for donations in a fairly aggressive way, if you will. And we ask ourselves the question, “Is that really how I want to be treated? So if we treat people like that, is that the right way of doing things?” So when we started to have that conversation, our team was, like, panicking because they were like, “If we don't do this, we don't hit our targets. We don't hit our amount of donations that we need.” But we kind of reeled them back in and said, “Well, but listen, here's our philosophy. If that is true, why would we use this tool?”

So, from one year to the other, we canceled our whole telemarketing approach, which is a big decision and a big change for the people involved in that. But again, it ties back to how you want to treat people from your core values and from your ministry philosophy. And I think that's a good example of where you change tactics, but you're consistent in your values and in your philosophies around your ministry, and you truly make decisions based on that.

Al: And so the outcome of that was you're still here, we're doing a podcast together, and Bible League is still flourishing, from a culture standpoint, and I hope your revenues are still strong.

Jos: The surprising part of this is we calculated in a little drop in our revenue because of that action. We didn't. We did not experience any of it. And I truly believe that is because the philosophy is that we don't want to treat others in a bad way. And your donors, your supporters, your stakeholders, they will feel that. They will know that.

Al: All right. Great, great lesson for us.

Well, Jos, also, Bible League International has a flourishing workplace culture, really outstanding. And you've got just highly engaged employees. And you and your team have been doing the Employee Engagement Survey with Best Christian Workplaces each year now for a number of years. So tell us, why is it important to get feedback and assess workplace health every year? How does getting regular feedback from your leadership team or for your leadership team, how does that help you to continue to learn and improve?

Jos: Yeah. We're very thankful for highly engaged staff, and it's really a team effort to get there. It includes everybody in that process. And I believe we need to find ways to make accountability in how we treat our people, to make accountability visible and transparent to everybody. I think that's the first thing that I wanted to say, because our partnership with Best Christian Workplace does that. It makes visible and transparent the accountability that we desire to have in how we treat people. And so, you know, an independent party bringing out the voice of all staff members and reporting about that to staff and to our board, that's one reason why we do it every year.

The second reason is we want to continue to improve in the way we manage and we lead. And the Survey, as we do it every year, it identifies areas of opportunity. It even connects it to where you can really address those opportunities, you know, where in your organization is the best place to do that. So it helps us focusing on our training and coaching program internally. I mean, it helps prioritization. It helps sometimes coaching certain teams through improvements.

And so, yeah, we're at the point where Best Christian Workplace, it's almost kind of an integrated tool in our people and culture strategy, providing this annual insight that then gets translated into strategies and priorities. And we're very thankful for that.

Al: Yeah. Great feedback. It's a visible way to show your accountability as a leader and as your leadership team, as you say, and just visible and transparent. Well, it's a way of continuing to improve. I appreciate that very much, Jos. Absolutely. And you’ve been a great one to use that as a leadership tool.

So, any leader who's in it for the long haul has experienced high points and valleys, successes and mistakes. And of course, you know, we like to focus on the high points. We always like to talk about all the good stories, but then, there are those that aren't so good all the time and really reflect some hard places. Jos, in your leadership journey, can you share with us a hard season and how you learned from that experience, and maybe even encourage, then, a leader who might be in a valley right now or in their own hard season?

Jos: Yeah. I appreciate that question. And I already mentioned this process that we have gone through this year. We've called it, basically, a ministry-alignment process. And it was actually a really intense time, a very good time, but an intense time because it wasn't necessarily driven by, you know, by crisis. It was really driven by the question, how can we do better? How can we add more value to the mission? And realizing that you're always in an imperfect circumstance. You're never perfect. You're always imperfect in the way you do things collectively. So to realize that and to ask the question, where can we improve? that can do a little bit of pain.

So we've had a lot of conversations this year and impactful decisions that were made in the last couple of months as we started to apply some changes to become even more efficient and effective in our ministry. And so a lot of harder conversations and change management going on there.

And, yeah, I was reflecting on your question because you sent me this question earlier. I had some time to think about it. And there's two things that I think that came out of that for myself, and that is, one, if you walk through it fair and with an intentional focus on the mission and aligning every activity in your ministry towards that mission, then it's actually a very healthy process. And surprisingly, it actually motivates people. So because as somebody said it to me once, like, everybody that comes in the office in the morning, nobody comes in with the idea to make a mess out of today, doesn't it? I mean, everybody wants to come in and contribute and add value. And so if you take serious as a leader, the value added and becoming more efficient and more effective, even though that might mean hard decisions, I think most people will consider it as a good thing, as a positive, and actually motivates people. So I think that's the first thing I learned out of this whole process, that actually the hard season motivated people because people essentially want to add more value. They want to be part of something that is bigger than themselves. And people actually came up with ideas and solutions through it all, so that was wonderful.

And then, the second thing that I asked myself, like, what does it mean to be fair in a process like that? And I guess as a leader, we are called to steward the mission, and to be faithful to the mission is really critical. And so it is healthy to align. It's healthy to go sometimes through hard processes and ask yourself the hard questions. And I think that's also the basis for caring for people. You can care for people by just giving them things they need. But sometimes the best care you can have for a person is to make them change what needs to be changed. And so I think what I learned through the process is don't be afraid to make hard decisions when they advance the mission and when they help you be more faithful to your mission.

So those were two lessons that I drew from it. One, it actually motivates people. And two is if you don't do those harder conversations, do you actually care for your people when you postpone some of those conversations? So those are good lessons for me this year, very humbling, but good to work through.

Al: Yeah. People want to make sure, as you say, that they want to contribute. There's no question. And what's the best way to do that? And to really focus to keep the mission squarely in mind as you're doing that. Yeah. That's great. Great feedback.

Well, gosh, Jos, we've just learned so much from this conversation. And I just go back to the story of the impact of transformation that Scripture has on people and communities, where in Colombia, there's a section that used to be called the “Curve of the Devil,” and now it's the “Curve of God” because of the transformational work of one person. And throughout our conversation, you focused on your core values and how, again, your values drive the decisions, it drives the way you interact with each other. And prayer, calling, service, unity, integrity, vision, just six great values, but that you put resources behind those core values and to integrate them through these resources into the organization's life, including prayer. And I love the way you continually reinforce how intentional you are about listening to the various voices internally and externally in the organization and how that's a key part of trust and how leaders can come and build trust and, well, actually, high levels of trust will actually speed up your work. But approaching it with humility and integrity and a deep care for people, and then accountability is a core part of that. So this has just been a great conversation, including even, then, working through hard seasons.

So, Jos, as you've thought about it and reflected now on our conversation, is there anything you'd like to add to what we've talked about?

Jos: Yeah. Thank you for that question. It was great that you recapped and thought about that story that I shared in the beginning of this brother ging into this hard area and the “Curve of God” is now a place of light in that dark place. And I think what that guy reflected was the same as what Jesus did in John 13, you know, as He was gathering with His disciples, He put down His robe, and then He grabbed a towel. And He went on His knees, and He washed the feet of the disciples. And it's the humility in leadership, in serving the people that you serve.

But there's something interesting in that story. When Jesus did that, Peter actually said to Jesus, “No, I don't need this. I don't need You to wash my feet.” I'm saying this in my own words. And it's interesting that Jesus, then, says, “Well, if I cannot wash your feet, you cannot be My disciple.” And then, of course, Peter comes back and says, “Well, wash the whole thing,” you know. That's kind of his typical response.

But yeah, as a leader, are you like the first Peter and saying, “Jesus, I don't need You to wash my feet. I'm already clean. I'm already humble enough”? Or are you the second-response Peter, that says, “Oh, Lord Jesus, I need You all. I need that washing any time of the day because I just need You so, so much”? And I think that's something that I always try to remember is as a leader, am I humble enough to allow Jesus to wash me daily and to transform me daily in order to serve those that He calls me to serve? And that was the example from Colombia that I shared. That was what that was about.

Al: Fantastic, Jos. Yeah. And as you've reminded us all, to deny ourselves through humility, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus.

So, thanks so much for your contribution today. This has been a great conversation. I appreciate your faithful service to the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world and through those that you're serving are able to see transformation in people's lives. And so thanks so much for taking your time out and spending your day speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Jos: Thanks, Al. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I feel honored that you're asking me, and we appreciate the partnership with you guys. Thank you.

Al: Keep up the good work. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Jos Snoep. And I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and got as much out of it as I have.

You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on creating a flourishing workplace culture, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And keep listening to our weekly podcast as we continue to learn from leaders who are proven inspirational leaders exhibiting Christian character and excellence in their leadership.

Next week we have the privilege of discussing the five tasks every leader needs to do, with Dr. Steve Graves.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.