A Car Ride in Rwanda

I was in the back of a car in Rwanda, heading to a meeting of leaders from across every nation in Africa, when Rick Warren turned around and said four words that changed how I see leadership. Four words that would go on to open one of the bestselling books in human history.

“It is not about you.”

That was it. No elaboration, no sermon attached to it, just those four words dropped into a conversation on the way to a room full of leaders who had traveled from every corner of a continent. I had read The Purpose Driven Life. I had heard the line before. But hearing Rick Warren say it out loud in that car, on the way to watch it lived out on a global scale, made it land differently. It stopped being a book quote and became something I could not unsee in my own life. Especially leadership. Especially ministry.

The 80% Nobody Talks About

Here is a number that should stop you the same way that car ride stopped me. Less than 20% of people will sit in a church on any given weekend. The other 80% will spend the majority of their waking hours somewhere else entirely; working, building, leading, creating, raising families, solving problems that never make it into a sermon illustration. Somewhere along the way we decided the most sacred work happens inside four walls on a Sunday morning. I want to challenge that.

The local church is God’s plan. I have given decades of my life to it, and I believe in it completely. But the church was never meant to be the destination; it was meant to be the launching pad. The Greek word is Ekklesia. It does not mean a building. It means the called out ones, sent into the world to fulfill their God-given purpose wherever they are planted.

The Original Marketplace Leaders

Look at the leaders Scripture actually chose. Abraham. Joseph. David. The disciples. Paul. Not priests. Kings, shepherds, fishermen, a doctor, a tentmaker, a tax collector. Marketplace leaders. Jesus did not recruit from the religious establishment; He walked into the marketplace and said follow me.

Billy Graham said it plainly in one of his last conversations: the Great Commission will be led by the people in the marketplace.

That means your business is not separate from your calling. It is your calling.

Your PRINTS Were Made for the Marketplace

This is where the PRINTS Framework comes in. You arrived on this planet pre-programmed with a specific set of gifts, a unique design, and a problem you were placed here to solve. Not just to make money. Not just to build a successful company. Your prints, that unrepeatable combination of who God made you to be, were never meant to stay hidden inside a building one hour a week. They were meant to show up in your business, your platform, your craft, your leadership. That is not a distraction from ministry. That is the vehicle for it.

Seven Marks of a Kingdom Business Leader

So what does it actually look like to run a business out of your prints instead of just your profit margin? At Printmakers last week, we broke down seven marks of a Kingdom business leader, and I want to give you a taste of them here.

A Kingdom business starts with a calling from the Creator, not a market gap. You did not stumble into your assignment; you were pre-programmed for it. Out of that calling flows a personal connection to the Lord that keeps the business tethered to something bigger than quarterly numbers, because a leader who is not walking with God will eventually build a company that reflects everything except Him.

And when that connection is real, the business becomes a reflection of God’s character. Integrity in the fine print. Honesty when it costs you the deal. That reflection shows up on the inside first, building a life-giving culture where people are not just employed, they are formed.

A Kingdom leader is also a steward of resources, not an owner hoarding them; everything from the capital to the calendar to the influence belongs to Someone else, and stewards manage differently than owners do. That stewardship produces measurable fruit, because Kingdom business is not vague spirituality bolted onto a P&L, it shows up in real outcomes, changed lives, changed communities, sustainable growth.

And finally, it becomes cycle-making, not cycle-breaking. It does not just fix one generation’s problem and stop; it builds something that reproduces itself into the next one.

The Next Twenty Years

Your platform, your company, your craft; these are not distractions from ministry. They are the vehicle for it. That is the work I have given the next twenty years of my life to. Not just the pulpit. The marketplace. The boardroom. The stage. The coaching session.

As Rick Warren put it, knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life. Without purpose, life has no meaning.

Live your design. Leave your print.