WGGS Interview – Bradley Waldrop Holy Profits Radio June 26, 2013

Bradley Waldrop describes the mission of Holy Profits Radio, provides encouragement to Christians in the workplace and details his own experience in his growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Holy Profits Radio (http://www.holyprofitsradio.com) airs live each Saturday on 95.7 WGNW LP The Choice (Candler), is hosted by Bradley Waldrop and a production of Chrysalis Consulting, LLC (http://www.leading4achange.com).

Transcript:

Interview with Bradley Waldrop on WGGS

Announcer:
And our first guest tonight is Bradley Waldrop from Holy Profits Radio. Good to have you tonight, sir.

Bradley Waldrop:
Thank you. Alright. Praise the Lord. Good to have you. Thanks for having me.

Announcer:
And your ministry is out of Asheville, North Carolina.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right.

Announcer:
And God is moving there. Just take a moment and introduce yourself, introduce your ministry there, before I butcher it up, please go ahead.

Bradley Waldrop:
No problem. Thanks for having me. This is a really great opportunity for me. What the ministry is, is applying God's word to your work. One scary thing is that only 12% of US families will be represented in church this week.

Announcer:
12%?

Bradley Waldrop:
Only 12%.

Announcer:
Only 12%.

Bradley Waldrop:
Right. So unfortunately for folks like you who are pastors, you get very little contact with individuals.

Announcer:
Yeah. That's very true.

Bradley Waldrop:
You know, if we were to take a poll of the audience and have everybody raise their hand and figure out who's affected by their work, every one of us are.

Announcer:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, sir.

Bradley Waldrop:
So earlier this year, God put on my heart to really look at scripture kind of front to back as the CEO's Guide to the Galaxy. In my view, there's a complete framework in there, a complete blueprint on how we can work with business, how we can build business, how we can treat one another in the workplace, and how to expand using a game plan that He's already shown has been successful. Earlier this year, I got an opportunity to talk to the folks at the radio station and we created Holy Profits Radio.

Announcer:
Holy Profits Radio.

Bradley Waldrop:
Which is dedicated to the business person, whether they are your leader or you just go to work every day.

Announcer:
Right. Right.

Bradley Waldrop:
It's a very practical application of God's Word. And we now have listeners on every continent except for South America in a brief 12-week period.

Announcer:
Is that right? Well, praise the Lord for that.

Bradley Waldrop:
Praise God. It's moving. Oh, yeah. It's moving.

Announcer:
And it sounds like to me that you found an avenue here that hasn't been explored and it seems like the Lord's given you favor with it.

Bradley Waldrop:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And what's so interesting is that, you know, we all go to church regularly, we work in small groups, we do lots of different things, and we sit and we talk about how to apply scripture to day-to-day things. Right? Which is great, and a lot of that is focused in the family. It's focused in the community. It's focused in the community inside a church somewhere. And God's put it on my heart that really we need to be able to be light out in the workplace.

Announcer:
Mhmm. Absolutely. Well, for the most part, a lot of people that I know, most of the time, it's not just 8 hours. It's 10, 12 hours. I mean, it consumes their life and really squeezes God out. But with this, it sounds like to me that you're putting God right back in there with His Word and Scripture and so forth. So I believe that you've got something going on here great. I believe God's going to honor it. Let me ask you this, can you share with us how you became a Christian? How did you come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Bradley Waldrop:
Sure. No, that's a great question. When I was a kid, I grew up in a Lutheran church, and I participated in everything that you should participate in. It was very scripted in my life. I went to confirmation, and I had book knowledge that Jesus Christ is my savior. I understood it. I understood the hierarchy, but I didn't have that personal relationship.

Announcer:
And did you know that as a young person per se?

Bradley Waldrop:
Not until I did have the personal relationship. Right? There's a big difference. Yes. Right? I mean, sometimes you think, well, okay, this is great. I sort of checked the box. I'm good to go.

Announcer:
That's good.

Bradley Waldrop:
But when you finally do get that relationship, all of a sudden life changes. I was a young guy. I was getting ready to go off to college, and I got a chance to go and visit with some family in Michigan. They were folks that I knew from postcards, I knew from pictures, but I didn't really understand who they were. And their Jesus was different than my Jesus. Their Jesus was very alive, and mine wasn't.

Announcer:
I gotcha.

Bradley Waldrop:
I knew where to stand up. I knew where to find the Psalms and where to find the hymn and all that other stuff.

Announcer:
Right? Yeah. You knew the number.

Bradley Waldrop:
But I never seen him act so deliberately in a family before. We were on our way back from a very long road trip. I was sitting in the back of the car, and all of a sudden the car started making this horrific noise. And they did what they knew to do, they started praying. And I'm the Lutheran kid in the back of the church, or the back of the back of the car that said, you know what? You guys have a different Jesus than I do. If He wanted to fix the car, He wouldn't have had this problem to begin with. And all of a sudden, the car stopped making noise. Enough so much that I could get home and sleep in the car. And when we got up in the morning, I asked, you know, what happened with the car? And my cousin was out there working on it. We had blown a head gasket, but God got us home.

Announcer:
Praise God. You don't go far with blowing head gasket.

Bradley Waldrop:
No. No, you don't.

Announcer:
They started praying just like that whenever Absolutely. And you'd never been involved or introduced to anything like that.

Bradley Waldrop:
And all of a sudden, I was so hungry to try to understand who this Jesus was because He was so different.

Announcer:
Hallelujah.

Bradley Waldrop:
Than mine. And Jesus broke my heart, and I wept almost the entire plane ride home.

Announcer:
Praise God. Hallelujah.

Bradley Waldrop:
Praise the Lord. So there's a big difference.

Announcer:
Amen. Amen.

Bradley Waldrop:
Book knowledge and personal experience.

Announcer:
Well, the Lord has a way to bring you where you need to be, and because Jesus is our Lord and Savior, but God is our Father, and He knows how to bring us where we need to be.

Bradley Waldrop:
Absolutely.

Announcer:
What mission do you feel God has called you to complete in this season of your life now as you go forward?

Bradley Waldrop:
Right now, I feel like God has actually delivered me to the Asheville area in order to continue to work with business leaders and business owners and embed the truth in their business.

Announcer:
Right.

Bradley Waldrop:
And that truth is that there is a Savior, and He paid the price for us. And we should be looking not just at what we do on a daily basis as a way to get money, but a way to honor Him for what He's done for us.

Announcer:
Amen. Praise God. And you've got a couple you've got your email, you've got a website.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yes, absolutely.

Announcer:
So people could connect, and they'll put that up on the screen for us. Great. And everything, Bradley. How have you lived out your faith where you work at, your environment there?

Bradley Waldrop:
I think the first sort of living out the faith was coming to Asheville to begin with. About three years ago, my wife came to me and she said, I think God is trying to move us. And I did what probably most normal husbands do, looked right at her, and I said, okay, and I went to work. I just went to work. Three months later, I came back to her, and I said, I think I finally heard you, and I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think I finally heard you. And in all of that, we just decided that we were going to pray on it for a month separately because I tend to influence her, and she does me, and I wanted to make sure that we understood what the Holy Spirit wanted. So in a month, I came back to her and said, I think you're right. I think we need to move. And I thought for sure we'd be moving to a different part of California. We were in Southern California at the time, and we thought we were going to move to Northern California. And in fact, she said no. You know, I know family is up there. That would be a comfortable place to be, but this is not a comfortable move. This is

something else. And at the same time, I had been really struggling with kind of confronting my own idolatry.

Announcer:
Right.

Bradley Waldrop:
I had lived this life of grabbing one brass ring after the after the next. I had a huge paycheck on a monthly basis, a great house, a great car, and Jesus came by and said, drop all of it, let's go. And it changed our lives.

Announcer:
Praise God. Isn't it awesome how you can hear the voice of God and you distinguish that voice and you just knew yourself, this was God telling you this.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. We were also very deliberate to pay attention to one another and other things that were happening around us. The Spirit was moving through lots of things in front of us, and it was simply for us to pay attention to that. And we had affirmations one after another that that's what we were supposed to be doing. So it brought us great peace even though we were walking way out of the boat for us. It was so out of our comfort zone that, you know, we knew that we had to have faith, and if we didn't, we'd fall flat on our face.

Announcer:
Right. And you'd miss it. Okay. What does idolatry look like in corporate America? Sounds like to me you've seen a lot of the spectrum of it here.

Bradley Waldrop:
I do. I've got a great chance of working in some really wonderful companies. And my last job was as a director of operations for a business unit in a multibillion-dollar international company. In all of that, there is this really interesting thing that happens when you end up paying people lots, you give them a really great title, you give them a lot of responsibility, all of a sudden it becomes about the stuff.

Announcer:
Oh, yes. The corner office is a really great place, and I know, I've seen, and I've participated in walking into the corner office and saying, wow, look at me. How great am I? And not really turning it around to say, wow, what a great blessing this is and what an awesome responsibility it is to be able to take care of all these different resources.

Bradley Waldrop:
Right. Yeah. And the people who are in this company. In fact, I worked for a company one time when if you made partner, it was almost a requirement for you to go out and buy a Porsche.

Announcer:
Is that right?

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. In fact, they would stop work. They would announce that you just made partner and a buddy of yours would come by and they had already picked out where the dealership was, and the two of you were gonna go and go get that car. You were gonna come back and take it for a test spin in front of everybody.

Announcer:
Right? And so idolatry was easy to just flow right into.

Bradley Waldrop:
Absolutely.

Announcer:
Because everybody else, you know. Well, that comes from, we call it well, it's actually it's a mentoring, fathering type because whatever the head does

Bradley Waldrop:
Absolutely.

Announcer:
That's what whatever the management does, it flows from the head. And in the same way in the kingdom of God, you know, God flows from top to bottom, so and also, you've seen this, and being that you grew up in a Christian environment, etcetera, did you feel a pull of God?

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. There's certainly a pull and there's sort of some discontent with it. But it's also very easy to get trapped in all of that.

Announcer:
Oh, I can't. It's everywhere. Yes, sir.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. And it seems to be the accepted norm, and God broke my heart with all of that. And so wait, hold on, time out. You're broken. And I get it. I'm broken.

Announcer:
We all are broken. Time for a change.

Bradley Waldrop:
But it's time for a change.

Announcer:
Right. And where would you point for guidance for people to find resource to for their life to change and get where they need to be in an environment like that?

Bradley Waldrop:
I think that the easiest way to do that is, one, scripture first. Prayer in all of that, hoping that the Holy Spirit will enlighten you in some way to make those changes and convict you where you need to be convicted. And then find a friend, you know, find someone else. I struggled in a firm where they wanted to go and do things and participate in society in a way that was really not biblical. And I felt super uncomfortable, but I didn't say anything. After this major event, I talked to one of my buddies and he said, yeah, I really, really wish you would have said something because I felt the same way. And you and I, we could have joined forces and just not done it.

Announcer:
Got it.

Bradley Waldrop:
So I think that's the other thing is to really kind of create an atmosphere that is vulnerable, that is trusting with a friend

Announcer:
Mhmm.

Bradley Waldrop:
And be able to confide in them so that you can strengthen one another.

Announcer:
Yeah. Because one person by themselves, it's intimidating.

Bradley Waldrop:
Oh, absolutely.

Announcer:
Somebody that sees your values, your core

Bradley Waldrop:
Right.

Announcer:
What you really are. And two people, you know, you draw strength, you're able to advance, and stand together. Now, what are you doing now to support Christian business owners and leaders in your ministry? How are you presenting that?

Bradley Waldrop:
One of the things that we're doing is we've created what I call a Christian Executive Officers Roundtable. It is a group of 12 individuals who are equally yoked. We understand where you're at. Where our values are, and we work on business operational issues in a trusted sort of ad hoc board of directors environment, which is biblically based. We open in prayer. We talk to one another about what's going on in our own business and what God would have us do with the situation that we're in, hold each other accountable to take care of those particular things.

Announcer:
Praise God.

Bradley Waldrop:
And support each other when we see each other kind of going off the path to say, hey, hold on just a second. That's not what scripture says. Let's go back and let's double-check it. And make sure we're alright. And then we just hold each other accountable for that.

Announcer:
Bradley, this is great. I'm really enjoying what God is speaking and doing in your life. Praise God. I always when I see this because I'm an old Pentecostal boy. You you've heard about us Pentecostals, you know, we we, you know, we just think if you shout and dance around the aisle, you know, you're there. But we missed a whole lot of opportunities. And now when I meet men of God like you, and you're moving into these areas and you're making impact, you're making a difference. And I really admire that in you. What has been one of the biggest struggles for you and your ministry in the last few years that you've really come up against?

Bradley Waldrop:
You know, I think that the biggest struggle is to find individuals who are willing to give up the sort of comforts of the idolatry that they have.

Announcer:
Yeah.

Bradley Waldrop:
There's a lot of comfort in that. And not only that, but they're very well protected because everyone else around them is taking good care of them now.

Announcer:
Saying it was money's power. Right?

Bradley Waldrop:
It is. It certainly can be. So that's been very difficult, to give people the courage that they need in order to take their business to the next level. And then for them to really understand that by giving that up, they're actually gaining an awful lot.

Announcer:
Because you're trying to get them to open up to be right, to be what God

Bradley Waldrop:
Right.

Announcer:
You know, is in them. You've experienced some miracles within your family. I know we're moving fast here, but should we think?

Bradley Waldrop:
We are. My, this may be tough.

Announcer:
It's alright.

Bradley Waldrop:
My two kids were hard to get on this planet. My first was born six and a half weeks early. She spent some time in ICU. My second was born two months early. Born emergency c-section in Life Flight at Children's Hospital and there she stayed for a month. When she got home, she had neurological problems. She couldn't, she would be stiff. You couldn't hold her. She had heart problems. She had a lot of medical issues. We got almost a year into it. She couldn't talk, and she was having some residual effects of this neurological issue. And the doctor had pre-diagnosed her with either cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. All they were doing was more and more testing to figure out exactly what it was so that they could get us to occupational therapy and get her to feel and do better. I was completely and totally at my wits' end, and I was in what I consider my prayer chariot, my car. On

the way back in Southern California, back home, my wife was struggling with the doctor to try to figure out where the information was, and by the time we had gotten to the neurologist for the actual diagnosis, I had been praying for about a half an hour and crying. The neurologist came in the room and he said, I can't explain it, but there's nothing wrong with your daughter.

Announcer:
Praise God. Hallelujah. The prayer chariot.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. The prayer chariot. Praise God. And so my wife and I looked at him and said, well, we can. We know exactly what happened. And we went out into the parking lot and just cried.

Announcer:
Praise God. Praise God. Well, we're so thankful for your ministry, your call. I want them to put your information up there, your website, your contact number. Listen, these managers, these office people, different ones, they need it. They need this because there's so much pressure in the management and so forth. And listen, I would just encourage you just to keep on because I sense the anointing of God on this. That's what I, you know, it's not just a good thing, but I sense the anointing of God. Bradley, I'm just sitting here. I'm just overwhelmed. And I'm going to shake your hand again, sir. We just thank the Lord for you. There are managers and people in business that, you know, they need help. But, you know, they want to look strong. And is God how does God use you to reach some of those do you how do people get in touch with you and so forth to get involved in this ministry?

Bradley Waldrop:
Well, He's doing it certainly through the radio station for sure, and then I'm involved in the local business community there in the Asheville area. But what's probably most interesting for me is with the Internet the way it is and my relationships across the country. Now, you know, I was well planted in California, and now I'm trying to figure out how to create relationships out here. God is using all of that in a way to say, hey, look. You know what? We're going to do our best to lead by example first.

Announcer:
Right.

Bradley Waldrop:
And then when folks see that I can be different, that I can be stern but still fair, that I can treat folks with respect and still get across that they need to make changes in their organization, that I am results-oriented, but I don't, you know, and every ounce of energy we put toward the bottom line makes a big difference.

Announcer:
Right.

Bradley Waldrop:
You end up creating a culture in the organization that's so much more trusted. I mean, I have this sort of this equation and this equation is that really great trusted leaders are one-third really great skilled folk. One-third have great solid character and that character comes from God. And the third piece is they have consistent and beneficial habits. And if you have those individuals in your organization, there will be masses gathered around. And they will ask, why are you different? And it gives you an opportunity to be able to proclaim, this is why I'm different. This is Jesus Christ.

Announcer:
That's right. And it isn't, from what I can gather, you're just not presenting this, this sterile Jesus, just in a flowing white robe. Jesus got into people's business. He got into their lives. I mean, look, Zaccheus the tax collector, I mean, look, and, all of it, the fishermen, I mean, from every angle of life.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. Well, not only that, but I think that most of us have this picture of Jesus that is almost weak.

Announcer:
Yes. Right? Almost weak. Yeah. But but he really came to this planet in this miraculous opportunity to save us.

Announcer:
Yes.

Bradley Waldrop:
And he turned over tables. He got angry with people.

Announcer:
And real business.

Bradley Waldrop:
Not only that, but he went to hell and he kicked butt and took names, like, you know, later. And in all of that, that is no weak Jesus.

Announcer:
That's no

Bradley Waldrop:
Not at all. No. No. And he's a great example of who we need to be as leaders, well steeped in what we believe and being able to act it out.

Announcer:
To bring that into an environment where it's, where people, you know, they're trying to get to the top. They're digging. They're clawing. They're whispering. You know, they're trying to find every angle. But when you present Jesus in the right flow, the right motive

Bradley Waldrop:
Right.

Announcer:
How do people respond to that? I mean, are they

Bradley Waldrop:
It's a relief. It's a relief because they've been, you're right, they've been jumping from ring to brass ring to brass ring and stepping on people on the ladder on the way up. And when you turn the organization structure upside down and you say here's the deal, the burden is on you to serve the people in the organization or let them get to a point where they can succeed

Announcer:
Praise God.

Bradley Waldrop:
And you put God first, all of a sudden the burden of having to be somebody else and having to fake it until you make it.

Announcer:
Yeah. Yeah.

Bradley Waldrop:
Oh, my goodness.

Announcer:
Yeah. It's all gone.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. It is all gone. The realness of God sets in.

Bradley Waldrop:
And all of a sudden grace takes over and you realize, yeah, I'm as broken as the next guy.

Announcer:
Yeah. Yeah.

Bradley Waldrop:
And all of these God is chasing after me and he's chasing after everybody who works here. Gives me a different perspective of how to work in the organization.

Announcer:
Praise No. That I mean, you've got a heart for it. I mean, I feel a passion, amen, but go ahead.

Bradley Waldrop:
Like those of us who really understand grace, I don't deserve it. Right?

Announcer:
Sir, we understand fully.

Bradley Waldrop:
And, you know, I will do everything I possibly can not to get in God's way as we go through all of this, but, it's, you know, we're all screwed up.

Announcer:
Right. But God is raising up men like you. You're mentoring. Actually, you're fathering, you know, one of the things that I see in a lot of business, dealing with people in business and different things, and especially for you, you've been around management. You could, your father, my father, there were 8 of us boys, so, you know, discipline, you know, my father really believed that scripture, spare the rod, spoil the child. Yeah. He believed that one all the way to but yeah. But, anyway, he instructed us, you know, do the right thing always, you know, your manners, etcetera. But there were other things in our life that when we began to as we got older, that he didn't teach us, and we just sort of had to learn it on the curve.

Bradley Waldrop:
Right.

Announcer:
And I think that's what happens when people get in management, people get in supervision, they don't know what to do with it.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah. Not only that, but they don't want to be found out for not knowing.

Announcer:
Yeah. That's a humiliating thing.

Bradley Waldrop:
What's amazing, I don't know what the percentage of management of men or of positions that are men and women, but I certainly know how men are wired. And we don't want to be found out for what we don't know. And we're willing to do everything we possibly can: lie, cheat, steal, and mess up the organization in order for us not to be found out. So you're absolutely right. It's a struggle out there for these individuals, but what happens though is that when you start to realize that there is grace there, that the value that you bring to the organization is not the value given by all your peers around you. It's what God has asked of you.

Announcer:
Amen.

Bradley Waldrop:
Then all of a sudden there is a paradigm shift. And when that happens, you end up with this trusted organization around you willing to go to battle for you.

Announcer:
Right. Right. Standing with you. Yeah. Absolutely. And everybody comes in unity. There's just everybody just forming together and it becomes one focus.

Bradley Waldrop:
Yeah.

Announcer:
We go into a lot of different meetings and different things, a lot of teaching the church about fatherhood, but because fatherhood, you know, starts out with God the Father, then our biological father, or whoever we had that mentors. And I think that's one of the areas that I've seen a lot of lack in, especially in business management. And God has given you this great opportunity to step in here and share this concept of what God is and what God can be in a business, what God can do in management, bring in, because God's about being in unity, he's about being in flow.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right

.

Announcer:
So are you finding that whenever you're able to get in there, does it draw other people in with?

Bradley Waldrop:
Yes. In fact, something weird happened maybe a year and a half, two years ago. I was doing my normal study. I would go into the office early in the morning and I'd do my study, and a guy about my age came by and said, What are you doing? I said, I'm just studying Scripture. And he said, Really? And he says, Yeah, I kind of walked away from the church a while ago. I said, well, okay. Well, you know, if you're interested then you can come on in. And he says, yeah, maybe some other time. And so I talked to him about a week later and I said, What do you think? And he says, I don't know. I don't even think I have a Bible anymore. And I said, Well, don't you worry. I'll take care of that. And so I went out and I bought him a Bible and I just set it on his desk. Wouldn't you know that three weeks later he and six other people showed up in the conference room to do a Bible study on the book of Jonah. Come on in. God's chasing you down, come on in. Let's talk about it. It's really the book of Jonah, really. That's right. You have the book of Jonah. And then we walked through the book of Jonah. So it's unbelievable. And, you're right. I think that those of us who are in management miss this awesome responsibility that we have to do both coaching, fathering coaching, and mentoring, that grandfatherly patriarchal kind of role, and talk to individuals about the decisions they're making and make those minor corrections out of love along the way. And I think that's another thing that business people don't understand is how can I correct the employees that I have, out of love? What does that mean? What does that really look like?

Announcer:
Yeah. And I want to look weak again.

Bradley Waldrop:
That's right. Yeah.

Announcer:
Don't want to look like, yeah, I want to see that I'm authority here. You've had some moments of not having a real understanding for God's plan in your life, but you're learning that God always provides spiritually, financially. How's that been for you?

Bradley Waldrop:
It's funny. Especially from California.

May God Richly Bless You and Your Business! We'd be honored if you shared with your crowd.