Life Lesson

Legacy

1. History or Overview of Marketplace ministry.

God want to put legacy in your life and in your business ideas. He desires to build his church through men that are sold out to him. Not just pastors and missionaries but also men of business and finance.

God is in the legacy building business.

Genesis 12:1   ¹ The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.  ² "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Genesis 15:1    ¹ After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." ² But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD , what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit ^[my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" ³ And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."

Abraham was concerned with his legacy! Men of faith think beyond the ME, MYSELF and I.

Visit the history of Jonathon Edwards (preacher in the 1700’s. Great Awakening)

Around 40 years ago, Yale University conducted an extensive seven-year study on how a persons actions in life effects the lives of his or her children. This study was focused around the lives of two men: Max Jukes and Jonathan Edwards. Max Jukes was an Atheist that believed in the abolition of laws and rules. Mr. Jukes formed an organization called the Freedom Movement that preached free sex, no laws, no formal education and no responsibilities. Jonathan Edwards was known by all as the "disciplinarian".

Not because he disciplined his children harshly, but because he was a self-disciplined man. He became a preacher that believed in leading by example. He authored two books on the subjects of physical fitness and kindness. Mr. Edwards later became involved in teaching people to be responsible for their daily actions. Both of these men were chosen for their diverse beliefs, but also because they both fathered 13 children. Here are the legacies they left behind:

2. God thinks multi-generational.
1. "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Gen 15:5
2. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Father, Son, Grandson.
3. "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, ⁷keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." Exodus 34:6-8

3. Businessmen that have multi-generational impact. All that God builds is eternal and has eternal purpose. While the money, buildings, businesses that God is involved in may not be eternal, the fruit of the business needs to be eternal in order for God to want to get excited about it.

1. Hershey Chocolate-The early years of Milton Hershey instilled in him the value of hard work. He was born on September 13, 1857, in a farmhouse near the Central Pennsylvania village of Derry Church. He was a descendant of people who had come to Pennsylvania from Switzerland and Germany in the 1700s. Raised as a Mennonite, he attended school only through the fourth grade before his father, Henry Hershey, put him to work as a printer's apprentice in Gap, PA.

                                                               i.      Milton Hershey School (formerly Hershey Industrial School) was established in 1909 by Mr. Milton Hershey and his wife Catherine to assist orphaned boys. The mission of Milton Hershey School (MHS) today, is to nurture and educate children in financial and social need in keeping with Milton and Catherine Hershey's Deed of Trust. Milton Hershey School is the largest residential pre-K through 12 school in the United States. MHS provides free education, career training, housing, clothing, sustenance, health care, and counseling to over 1,100 racially and ethnically diverse boys and girls who are in financial need and social need.

                                                             ii.      Hershey Trust Company is an independent trust company founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1905. The stock of Hershey Trust Company is wholly owned by the Milton Hershey School Trust. In 1909, Milton Hershey created the Milton Hershey School Trust and appointed Hershey Trust Company as its trustee to provide investment management and administration for the School Trust. Mr. Hershey established the School Trust to provide for the health, education and welfare of orphaned boys. The School’s original enrollment was 10 students. Today, over 90 years later, Mr. Hershey’s legacy continues. The School currently has an enrollment of more than 1,200 students, with an equal mix of boys and girls. Enrollment is expected to grow to 1,500 students in the next couple of years. Because of Hershey Trust Company’s consistent, superior investment management of Milton Hershey’s original funding of 486 acres of land and $60 million in Hershey Chocolate Company stock, the School Trust’s assets have grown to a value exceeding $5 billion today.

b.      William Colgate, of the great Colgate-Palmolive Corporation, started out in business, he said God, ‘I must be faithful to You.’  He began tithing, and God blessed him.  William's family was poor and at the age of 16 he left home to seek his fortune. The only thing he knew was how to make soap and candles. He met an old canal-boat captain who gave him this advice: "Be a good man, give your heart to Christ, pay the Lord all that belongs to Him, make an honest soap, and I'm certain you'll be a prosperous and rich man." He arrived in New York and got a job in a soap factory. The first dollar he earned, he gave 10% to God. Soon he became a partner of the firm. Later he became the owner. The business grew, so he gave a double tithe, 20%. Then a triple tithe, a four-fold one, half his income - finally he was giving all his income to the Lord.

                                                               i.      Visit Colgate University at http://www.colgate.edu/

3. J.D. Rockefeller said, "I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week."

4. Henry John Heinz, of Heinz Ketchup fame, began paying tithe.

                                                               i.      When the will of Henry J. Heinz, wealthy distributor of the famous "57 Varieties " line, was read it was found to contain the following confession: "Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to set forth at the very beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were unusual joys and sorrows, I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left me by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained." His company now averages over 8 billion in yearly sales. http://www.heinz.com/jsp/index.jsp

                                                             ii.      Howard Heinz (1877-1941) was the son of Henry J. Heinz, founder of the food company now famous for its ketchup. He became the advertising manager in his father’s company in 1900, eventually working his way up to president. The younger Heinz was a ruling elder at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he was actively engaged in charities and civic improvements. He took a special interest in programs that would better the lives of young people, such as Covode House, a clubhouse for boys. He created the Heinz Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus to serve as a spiritual resource for the students.

                                                            iii.      The foundations

1.      Heinz Family Foundation. With assets of $69 million in 2002, it made grants that year of $4.8 million.

2.      Howard Heinz Endowment. It had assets of $773.3 million and made grants of $43.7 million in 2002.

3.      Vira I. Heinz Endowment. Its 2002 assets were $399.2 million and it made grants of $17.9 million.

4.      That adds up to $1.24 billion in assets and $66.4 million in grants disbursed in 2002.

e.       Stanley Kresge

                                                               i.      Mr. Kresge was born on June 11, 1900 in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated from Albion College in 1923 and went to work for his father's company, the S.S. Kresge Company. The S.S. Kresge Company later changed its name to K-Mart. For much of his entire life, Stanley Kresge was very wealthy man. But he was not spoiled by his inherited wealth. He was a Christian philanthropist who maximized that fortune. During his lifetime he gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to others, and especially to his church. When he died in Detroit at the age of 85, his pastor said this in the eulogy: "He considered what he had as a trust from God, and that he was a steward of all that God had given to him." Before his death, Kresge told a newspaper reporter why he never let it be known how much of his personal fortune he had given away. He said, "I'd be embarrassed to have anybody think I was bragging about charity." But quietly and consistently, all of his check payments and charitable contributions were signed exactly the same way: "In the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, Stanley S. Kresge."

                                                             ii.      The Kresge foundation, started in 1924 by Sebastian S. Kresge "to promote the well-being of mankind." is now worth 2.5 billion.

6. James Cash Penny

                                                               i.       As he started out in business, his business was going poorly, and he had a physical collapse.  He was up in a little sanitorium, rebuilding his health, and walking down one of those corridors in that little health rehabilitation center, he heard someone playing hymns on the organ.  J.C. Penny walked in there, bowed down and said, ‘Lord, I'm giving my life to You.’  He was convicted that, even in debt and poverty, he should begin returning tithe to God --- he did, and J.C. Penny department stores have sprung up all over America. 

                                                             ii.      At his death in 1971, Penny, 95, left a 1,660-store empire that he built without compromising the stiff principles he had absorbed from three generations of Baptist preacher ancestors. He neither smoked nor drank, and for years demanded the same abstemious conduct from his employees. "I believe in adherence to the Golden Rule, faith in God and the country," he often said. "I would rather be known as a Christian than a merchant."

                                                            iii.      Net assets of 14 billion. The companies charitable side gave away 9.9 million last year

7. Wallace Johnson (Holiday Inns)

                                                               i.      Builder of numerous Holiday Inn hotels and convalescent hospitals said, "When I was 40 years old I worked in a sawmill. One morning the boss told me, you’re fired." "Depressed and discouraged, I felt like the world had caved in on me. It was during the Depression, and my wife and I greatly needed the small wages I had been earning. When I went home I told my wife what had happened. She asked, what are you going to do now? I replied, I am going to mortgage our little home and go into the building business. My first venture was the construction of two small buildings. Within five years, I was a multimillionaire. Today if I could locate the man who fired me, I would sincerely thank him for what he did. At the time it happened, I did not understand why I was fired. Later, I saw it was God’s unerring and wondrous plan to get me out into the way of his choosing."

8. James Kraft of Kraft Cheese

                                                               i.      J.L. Kraft, head of the Kraft Cheese Corporation, who had given approximately 25% of his enormous income to Christian causes for many years, said, "The only investment I ever made which has paid consistently increasing dividends is the money I have given to the Lord."

9. Robert Letourneau of Letourneau earth-moving equipment

                                                               i.      In 1909, at age twenty-one, R. G. moved to Stockton, California, where he began a dirt-moving business and built his own scrapers. He built the first all-welded scraper with electric motors to adjust the blade, and he invented the bulldozer blade that attached to the front of a caterpillar tractor. In 1932 he used rubber tires instead of steel wheels for the first time on heavy equipment when a customer complained that the steel wheels sank in the sand. In 1935 he moved his plant to Peoria, Illinois, to be near the Caterpillar Tractor Company since contractors used Cats to pull R. G.'s scrapers. Here he established his first technical education courses for his employees who lacked the skills to do their jobs well. The instruction included mathematics, technical courses, and business courses. The development of the self-propelled, scraper-earthmover in the late 1930s placed R. G. LeTourneau Inc. in the forefront of the earth-moving and heavy equipment industry just as World War II was beginning. During the war LeTourneau Inc. produced 70 percent of the earth-moving equipment (8,000 scrapers, 14,000 dozer blades, and other items) used by the Allies. In 1946 he moved his operations to Longview, Texas, where he constructed a steel mill to supply his assembly plants. In 1953 he sold his earth-moving business to Westinghouse Air Brake Corporation; thereafter his plants constructed logging, construction, road, mining, and oilwell-drilling equipment. Most notably, LeTourneau built mobile platforms for offshore drilling. He was referred to often as "God's Businessman" because he dedicated 90 percent of his company stock to the LeTourneau Foundation, which sponsored Christian missions in South America and Africa and financed LeTourneau Technical Institute from its founding in 1946 until 1961. He also was a pioneer in establishing an industrial chaplaincy for his employees, and he traveled each weekend to speak to large audiences about applying Christian principles in everyday life. LeTourneau devoted much of his time and wealth to private education. He founded LeTourneau Technical Institute (now LeTourneau University); he was also a trustee of John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and a member of the board of reference of Wheaton College in Illinois. He was active in the Christian Business Men's Committee

10. Henry P, Crowell of Quaker Oats

                                                               i.      More than 100 years ago Henry P. Crowell contracted tuberculosis and was told he could never achieve his ambition of becoming a preacher. After hearing a sermon by Dwight L. Moody, he prayed, "Lord, I can't be a preacher, but I can be a good businessman. If You will let me make money, I will use it in Your service." A doctor advised young Crowell to work outdoors. He followed this advice and at the end of seven years had regained his health. He then bought the little run-down Quaker Mill in Ravenna, Ohio. His business prospered, and, true to his promise, he paid a faithful tithe. Within 10 years Quaker Oats was a household name. For the next 40 years Crowell faithfully gave from 60 to 70 percent of his income to God's cause.

11. Chick-fil-A

                                                               i.      S. Tuett "Dan" Cathy began his first restaurant about 1946 and opened his first chain location for Chick-fil-A in 1967. Cathy is a devoutly religious man who built his life and business based on hard work, humanity and biblical principles. Based on these principles, all of Chick-fil-A's restaurants operate with a "closed-on-Sunday" policy -- without exception. When not managing his company, Cathy donates his time to community efforts and teaches a Sunday school class to 13-year-old boys, as he has done for nearly 50 years.

12. Oneida Silverware

                                                               i.      The Oneida Community: The Nineteenth-Century Utopian Society of John Humphrey Noyes. To state it briefly, the old Oneida Community was a religious and social society founded in Oneida, New York, in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers. In the beginning, most of them were Vermonters, almost all were New Englanders.The Community was founded on Noyes' theology of Perfectionism, a form of Christianity with two basic values; self-perfection and communalism. These ideals were translated into everyday life through shared property and work. Noyes' solution was a society where the interest of one member became the interest of all - the enlargement of the family. They called themselves Perfectionists and, being logical and literal, they proceeded to substitute for the small unit of home and family and individual possessions, the larger unit of group-family and group-family life.The Oneida Community canned fruits and vegetables; they made traps and chains; they made traveling bags and straw hats and mop sticks and sewing silk and, last of all, they found out how to make silver knives and forks and spoons.This is the beginning of what has grown to become Oneida Silversmiths and the Oneida Ltd. of today.

                                                             ii.      Oneida Ltd had net sales figures in fiscal year ending January 2004 were $453 million as compared to $491.9 million in fiscal year ending January 2003; $509.1 million in fiscal year ending January 2002; and $524.3 million in fiscal year ending January 2001.

13. Shaker Furniture

                                                               i.      Shakers emphasized function and quality, believing that these were an extension of their spirituality. Their buildings, well constructed and efficient, were spartan but pleasing in their simplicity. They exhibited innovative architecture, striking in its symmetry and utility. Tools and vehicles were strikingly "modern" in design. Technology was readily adopted and applied to their tasks. The familiar flat broom is an example of Shaker inventiveness which resulted in business success. Markets soon developed for Shaker products. Success in business and farming sustained the communities through the hard times after the Civil War. Perhaps if the Believers had also embraced marriage and childbearing, they could have survived well into our present times.

14. Moravian Trading

                                                               i.      In 1732, David Nitschmann and Leonhard Dober became the first Moravian missionaries when they established a mission to African slaves on the isle of St. Thomas. Nitschmann supported both men by carpentry. They were soon followed by other missionaries who sought to support themselves by “secular” occupations, although it is doubtful whether a good Moravian, especially in those days, considered anything in God’s world to be “secular.”[1]

                                                             ii.      Moravians set up trading posts and business in every nation that they went to for evangelism purposes.

Let’s put this in perspective. The ability to work hard and design your own future is a part of the democratic idea.

4. The American Dream.-The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which was written in 1931. He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (p.214-215)

The American Dream is more that “American”. It is a basic human desire to build community and wealth so future generations will be better off than we are.

1. Martin Luther King Jr. States the American Dream as such: It wouldn’t take us long to discover the substance of that dream. It is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a dream. It’s a great dream.[2]

2. A unique dream for a unique country. The U.S. was started on biblical principles. As stated above, many of God’s blessings are available to those that follow his principles. Many of the founding fathers were men of faith and even those that were not too spiritual (like Benjamin Franklin) they followed the common biblical thought of the day. There can be no denying that the U.S. has been living in the fruit of these men’s decision to create a “Nation under God”. We have blessed the alien and helped the oppressed. The statue of Liberty reads "Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". God is very clear about his blessing to those that help the poor and oppressed. America has welcomed wave after wave of immigrant looking to find a bit of that American dream.

                                                               i.      Polish, German

                                                             ii.      East Indian and Asians

                                                            iii.      Mexican and Brazilian

¹ Praise the LORD!
       Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
       Who delights greatly in His commandments.
       ²His descendants will be mighty on earth;
       The generation of the upright will be blessed.
       ³Wealth and riches will be in his house,
       And his righteousness endures forever. Psalm 112:1-3

Experience shows us that a basic trust in God with a hard work ethic is necessary to build multi-generational lives. It is not enough to think about ME, MYSELF and I. God spoke to Abraham and said, “Through you the nations will be blessed.” Through Godly business families, churches, communities and even nations will be blessed.

A 100-year-old man was planting a peach tree, and watched by his neighbor next door. The neighbor went out for a chat, and jokingly asked, "Do you really expect to eat the fruit of that young seedling?" The old man stopped his work, leaned on the handle of his shovel and said, "All my life I've eaten the fruit from trees planted by others. It's time for me to plant a tree from which others who will follow me can enjoy the fruit."