Beeson Podcast, Episode #515 Don Menendez Sept. 22, 2020 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today we are starting a new series on the podcast called, Christian Faith At Work. We’ll be interviewing members of our Beeson community who are seeking to advance the reign of God in business and the professions. I’m especially excited to let you hear from today’s guest who is one of the first friends I made after moving here to Birmingham last summer. He is the real deal my friends. A very thoughtful Christian and a good friend. Before we get under way let me remind you that we are eager to stay in touch with you during the Covid pandemic. Let’s work on this together. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even YouTube. We are not hard to find and we would love to hear from you in any way you’d like. Please drop us a line and let us know how you’re doing. We love you and we are praying for you. Kristen, who do we have on the program today? >>Kristen Padilla: Welcome, everyone, to the Beeson Podcast. We have a friend of Beeson and a personal friend of mine on the show today, Don Menendez. Don has been involved in the technology industry for 40 years, beginning with the IBM Corporation, and most recently as Founder and CEO of White Plum Technologies, a software development company. He is a Beeson Divinity School advisory board member. And he also serves on numerous boards throughout the community, including the Boys and Girls Club of Central Alabama. He and his wife, Jane, and their children are members of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, which is where I met Don and Jane. Don, welcome to the Beeson Podcast. We’re so glad to have you on the show. >>Don Menendez: Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure. >>Kristen Padilla: We always like to begin in a very personal way. We would love to know about your story, who are you, where are you from? Especially your story of faith in Jesus Christ. >>Don Menendez: Well, thank you. Again, glad to be with you today. I live in Birmingham, Alabama, but I grew up in a number of different cities. I was born in Miami, lived in Puerto Rico, Memphis, Tennessee, Chicago, Louisville, Kentucky. Went to school in Nashville, and I ended up, after a short stint in Atlanta, in Birmingham. And we’ve been here for 35 years now. We just love it. I grew up in what might be called a culturally Christian family. Matters of faith just weren’t really something we discussed around the kitchen table, even though we belonged to a church and we were somewhat regular attenders at church. I think it would be fair to say that personally I was a notional Christian. I had some notion of what Christianity was. For me it was probably part bible stories, part citizenship, part morality, and part just trying to be a good person. But in my case I never really doubted that there was a God or that Jesus was his son, a person who had lived and died and was raised from the dead. I just didn’t have a clear understanding of what that had to do with me and how it should be impacting my daily life. When I was in high school I went to Young Life on occasion. In college I continued to attend church. And I even joined some small study groups from time to time. But it really wasn’t until my late 20s or my early 30s when I really began to engage God’s Word and primarily in small group settings. For me, that’s where faith really took hold and kind of where I began to understand the gospel and my need for God’s salvific work in my life and his grace on a daily basis. So, that’s kind of my story. >>Doug Sweeney: It’s a wonderful story. Don, we want to get around to ask you about the difference your faith makes in the way you do your work, but help us set this up a little bit. Tell us enough about your career so that we’ll be able to process the advice you give us well. How did you get started in business and technology? Why did you start your own business and what is White Plum Technologies? >>Don Menendez: My first job right out of college, as Kristen mentioned, was with IBM. And I spent about ten years with them. So, I guess I’ve really been in technology all my life. It was a really wonderful foundation that IBM, back in those days, gave people understanding in not only technology but management systems and all of the skill sets that you would need to be successful in business. I had left IBM after about ten years with one short stint outside of technology. I returned to technology in 1997, I was president of a technology company. I really felt like I was being called out from my current position to start a business. I really didn’t know what the business itself was going to be. I didn’t have a plan, if you will, for the “what.” But I felt like I was being called very specifically to the “why” and I was being called very specifically to the “how.” And I remember, Doug and Kristen, I explained what I felt I was being called to do and a lot of friends were suggesting that maybe God was calling me into full time ordained ministry. I was probably in my early 40s. I can remember that happening over and over again, because I couldn’t tell them what I was going to do. I would just tell them that I felt God was calling me at this “why” and this “how.” The one thing I was certain of is that God was not calling me to ordained ministry, as it relates to the “what.” That I was sure of. But in retrospect, I think that what God really was calling me to was to pursue growing in my integrity in my work. In other words, learning how to more fully integrate my faith with where I spent the largest part of my waking hours, and that was at work. It was consistent with a theme that God had been working on in my life since probably 1985. I’d been actively working through this for about 12 years. Ultimately, I founded White Plum Technologies, which as Kristen says, is a software development company. So, it was much more about the “why” and the “how” as opposed to the what in founding the business. >>Kristen Padilla: As Doug has already said, this series is seeking to explore Christian faith at work. Don, after you founded White Plum, tell our listeners how your Christian faith has impacted the work that you are doing there? How are you trying to make a difference for Christ and his Kingdom in the work place? >>Don Menendez: Great questions. For me it’s THE key question. It was the key question, too, when I started the business. How should my faith inform and impact my daily work? And as Doug and I have talked about before, at that point in time there wasn’t a lot, I wasn’t getting a lot ... it was pre internet. So, I wasn’t getting a lot of good answers for me, certainly I wasn’t getting it from the pulpit, I wasn’t getting it from the church. And that wasn’t because there was anything lacking there, it just wasn’t the focus. A lot of the current para church ministries that are available to talk about integrating faith and work just didn’t exist or they weren’t as readily available as they are now. It was clear to me that my Christian identity should impact and inform my work life. In the same that it impacted the rest of my life: my family life, my life in the community, my relationship with my spouse, my life in the church. I really sat down and I wrote up nine principles that I thought God had been teaching me about the vision for business. I think this helps answer the question. I won’t go through all nine of them. But there were two or three that were really foundational. The first one was that I was certain that God wanted me to commit the business and everything I did in the business to the Lord. That I would be a good steward. That I would work diligently. But I would always do it for the glory of God and be intentional about my daily walk with the Lord at work. That I would never stray from the truth of God’s sovereignty over all aspects of my life, including my work. I go back to this document, by the way, from time to time. I’m grateful about what God has done. It was aspirational at the time. And where I’ve fallen short it’s been because of my own human failings and my lack of abiding with the Lord, but where things have turned out well it’s been in those times when I have been really close to the Lord. It was the idea of committing everything, this idea of stewardship, the idea that God actually owned the business. I would say this, your question was about specifically ways to impact the kingdom. Those are tactics and those are outcomes. But to me the most foundational thing is that piece that says the only way to do kingdom work and to do it intentionally is to understand who owns the business, who owns my life on a daily basis. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. We’ll pull you out a little bit more. Has there been a cost for you, being a Christian businessman? Have you had to say, “No” to things? Have you had to make tough decisions on the basis of your loyalty to Christ? Have any of those decisions hurt your business? And if so, how do you navigate that? How does a Christian who has limits because of his Christian faith and his Christian ethics stay strong in the midst of needing to hold the line for the sake of Christ? >>Don Menendez: Yeah. Another great question. I want to be careful about cherry picking incidents and reverse engineering what God did in those, because I think we can do that often. One immediately comes to mind and that was when I was raising ... I had to raise money for this business from outside investors. One of the things I thought was a principle that I felt very strong about was that we would tithe off of our earnings, whatever they are. I remember having a friend and a mentor who was going to be a potential investor. He looked at me, and we looked at that, he said, “Well, that’s crazy.” (laughs) I said, “Well, I’m not trying to point to you biblically that every business has to do that, but I just felt compelled to do that.” He told me, “Love you and everything, but I don’t think I’m going to invest in a business that’s going to do that, because that just doesn’t make sense to me.” It wasn’t an angry and ugly thing, but it was good that he was clear about that. He pointed to that. That would be a small thing. But I think the larger point I’d make to that question is this – the Christian life is a life of tension. Jesus himself tells us in the Gospel of John that in this life you will have tribulation. We understand that we live in the world, but we’re not of the world. The work place is definitely one place where there can be significant tension on a daily basis. I think when we’re talking about being in the world – and we talk about this here from time to time with those people who are believers and who work in the business and are leaders – we’re talking about, I think, the physical location. The here and the now. That’s where I am today. I’m in my office and I’m working in Birmingham, Alabama at White Plum Technologies. But when we speak about being of this world I think we’re really talking about how we think and where we get our wisdom from. Because there are literally scores of decisions every day that are made. And sometimes this tension arises where our commitment to Christ is at odds with the realities and the complexities of the marketplace. That’s the real question. I want to say this one thing. This was foundational for us. About 25 years ago I heard a Keller sermon, Tim Keller sermon. He talked about when we need wisdom and where we get that wisdom. If I remember his point correctly, which I think I do, largely, is that we need wisdom when the rules don’t tell us what to do. If the rules tell us what to do then we can simply decide whether or not we’re going to follow those rules. Those rules could be laws, they could be principles of business or finance, they could be what your shareholders have laid out for you as the rules, if you will. But we need wisdom when the rules don’t tell us what to do. And the second point he made was that everyone will go to whatever is king in their lives for that wisdom. And as Christians the source of our wisdom is supposed to be, as I understand it, is scripture guided by prayer open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. So, I think that what allows you to preserve, to maintain and carry on and to be strong with your fidelity to Christ in your work world, when it may be uncomfortable or costly, it’s knowing deep in your soul who the King is and it’s being able to access his wisdom and provision in that area. It’s really the base foundational piece, I think, of integrating our lives, the things I’ve been talking about, committing your workers to the Lord, committing your work itself to the Lord, a steward concept. So that now when you get into the day to day difficulty of decisions where there’s going to be tension and pressure, who’s the king in your life? The last thing I’d say about that, and this is so comforting: if I believe, as St. Paul said, that I have been crucified with Christ, that it’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me. If I believe that, then my decisions are his as well. >>Kristen Padilla: How, Don, has the work place and the business that you do ... how has that been an advantage or opened doors for gospel work that otherwise might be shut to the local church? And I also know we have a lot of pastors who listen and are thinking about how do we make an inroad and impact the business world? So, maybe you could say a word or two to them about how they can think about their members who are in the business world about the doors that open through their work. >>Don Menendez: Yeah. I would say this to pastors: If you impact a business person, your ability to impact far beyond what your church might ever be able to do is huge. So, I would encourage to really build into individual business people. Business is a great place to do Kingdom work, because you get so many opportunities to have interactions with people who might never darken the door of a church, or who may even have been hurt by the church. And being in the business world we get to develop relationships with all sorts of people. In a very normal, non-churchey way. Think about it. Customers, employees, co-workers, suppliers, vendors, lawyers, landlords ... if we carry out our mission and vision, informed and guided by the working out of our faith, and maybe we make life a little better for them and maybe, just maybe, they get an unexpected whiff of God’s fragrant aroma from us. I’ll tell ya, that’s Kingdom work. We’ve seen that play out in the way our people treat each other and treat their customers and treat our suppliers. They get that. Every once in awhile they’ll ask, “Where does that come from? What’s different about you?” So, we fail every day. But we also succeed from time to time. We know that God can redeem our failures. So, our job is just to be available and obedient to his calling in our lives, not just in our work to the church, but I think in our lives at work. We’ve learned a long time ago that people don’t care how much you know, till the know how much you care. And if we treat everyone that we come into contact with, with the respect that’s due an image bearer then we have opportunities daily that I would submit no church really has. That’s one of our core principles, our core values – is respect for the individual. That’s the first one. One of the ways we illuminate that beyond respect of the individual is we actually say that we believe that everybody was created as an image bearer and that deserves respect. So, great place for Kingdom work. >>Doug Sweeney: Don, how has your business managed the Covid epidemic? Have you had to make some cuts that affect those who work for you, or those who use your products? What difference has your faith made in navigating the tumult of these last several months? >>Don Menendez: Yeah, well, all of our customers are physicians, healthcare workers. And so in our particular circumstance we knew that very early on a lot of our clients were going to go to 50% or 30% of their revenues and physician practices typically don’t have a lot of capital to back up a month without cash flow. So, like a lot of businesses they had a problem. One of the things we did early on ... I’m not sure, this was certainly informed by ... we may have made this decision if we’d not been Christians, but it was the right thing to do. And that is that we were going to approach all of our clients if they had a problem paying us. Our approach was that we wanted to talk with them and we wanted to ask them ... we’re going to presume a set of terms and conditions that made sense for us, we just wanted to ask ... we prayed about this, we prayed for them, and then we would have a meeting with them and ask them what would work best for them, what they wanted the terms to be. Thankfully, we were able to do that. It wasn’t as significant as we thought. There weren’t as many clients that didn’t need to be gone for as long, so we had a little bit of a bump and our clients had a bit of a bump, but it worked out fine for us. I think that what’s helped us is ... and it helps you whenever you have a down turn in business, and that is that our faith gives us perspective. It informs our understanding, not only where we are but more importantly why we’re here and where we’re headed. Because we, as Christians, believe that we’ve actually read the last page of the book – kinda know how this thing turns out at the very end. So, during times that are particularly difficult, like what we’re going through right now, I think perspective is important and helpful, but eternal perspective is encouraging and is hope filled, even in the middle of turmoil and suffering. CS Lewis said that we have to continually be reminded of what we believe. So, that’s what we try to do every day. We try to remind ourselves of what it is that we really believe. And we try to maintain an eternal perspective. And we preach the gospel to ourselves daily. Particularly on those days when there are no checks in the mail for several days in a row. >>Kristen Padilla: That is such an encouraging word, especially for those listening who have been going through difficult times due to the pandemic. So, thank you for your testimony and witness. We can’t let this podcast end without hearing a word from you about your relationship to Beeson. I know that you have taken many of our lay academy courses over the years. And, like I said, you have served on our board. For which we are very grateful. So, I just want to know: How has Beeson Divinity School shaped your life and your view of God’s work in the world? >>Don Menendez: Yeah. I would say, gosh, Beeson is such a jewel. Particularly for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in Birmingham. I think technology, in the future, or even now, but in the future will even more allow everybody to have the same kind of benefit that we’ve gotten out of the lay academy. But those classes, as a lay person, getting the advantage of being able to sit and listen and learn under the faculty that God’s called here to teach at Beeson is just incredible. And the [inaudible 00:20:28] our business is that God’s called me to ministry in the work place. God’s called those people to ministry in education and development of young people, of people, for the pastorate. And it’s such an incredible resource for me to be able to go deeper into God’s Word in a way that I wouldn’t be able to without that. So, it’s really impacted. I have notebooks upon notebooks of excellent teaching that I can go back to. >>Doug Sweeney: Thank you for that wonderful plug. Don, we always like to end these shows by asking our guests what’s the Lord teaching you these days? What is the Lord doing in your life these days? And it can be a tough question to have to wrap your mind around. But is there anything by way of conclusion you can encourage our listeners with about the Lord’s work in your life in recent weeks? >>Don Menendez: Yeah, I would say ... and I know I’m not alone in this, it’s funny how people talk about it, a positive thing is being a lifelong learner. I’m a lifelong slow learner. (laughs) There’s a lot that’s always being taught if I’ll just pay attention to it. I would say, trying not to deflect the question, that most recently there’s been a theme of revealing my need where I may not think I have need. And this is not the first time for me and I’m sure it’s a theme that will continue on. But that sometimes can be a painful process, thinking that you have overcome that. For me, just recently, in the last couple of weeks it was around an area of forgiveness and restoration. And as painful as that process can be, I still want to lean into, because I know at the end of the day that perspective says that it always pushes me back to him and for that I’m grateful. So, I think what’s been going on is a revealing of some areas where I’ve got need that I thought I had handled on my own. And he’s drawing me close to him that way. But as you guys know, that can be a little painful in the middle of the process. >>Doug Sweeney: It sure can. Thank you very much, Don, for being with us. You have been listening to Don Menendez, the Founder and CEO of White Plum Technologies here in Birmingham, Alabama. We’re especially thankful to Don for being the first person to be interviewed in our series called Christian Faith at Work, about which we are excited. We hope you are, too. We thank you all for being with us. We ask you to continue praying for us, as we continue here at Beeson navigating the Covid epidemic. We are praying for you. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.