#107: Shawn Bolz & Bob Hasson: Wired to Hear
Shawn Bolz and Bob Hasson want to help you take God to the marketplace. In our conversation, we cover everything from hearing God, to what it means to be a witness at work. This was an incredible conversation with some great guys!
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EP. 107 Shawn Bolz and Bob Hasson
Tony: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. The reclamation podcast is brought to you by the spirit and truth podcast network, check out spirit and truth at their website, spirit and truth.life. Well, if we haven't met yet, my name is Tony and I'm so excited to be here today for episode one Oh seven of the podcast.
I get to sit down with two amazing men of God, Shawn Bolz and Bob Hassan, and they have a brand new resource out called wired to hear now, Sean and Bob are experts about hearing God's voice in the community. In the world. And I think that they bring so much wisdom about how to listen for God and the world that you currently live in.
I'm so excited to share this episode with you. I know God's got a word for you in this episode, and if you enjoy it, do me a favor check out our w. Full transcripts@reclamationpodcast.com. Subscribe, wherever you listen to podcasts at leave a comment or rating or review on iTunes, it really does help go a long way to help others find the podcast.
Thank you guys so much for being part of this community, and I'm so excited to be on this journey with you now with out any further ado. Here's my conversation with Sean and Bob. Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have two incredible thought leaders and authors with me, Bob and Shawn.
How are you guys?
Both: Awesome.
Tony: Now that we're here, you guys are in sunny, California, and I'm in Ohio. So I've got a little bit of jealousy that I'm working through, but not, it's not too bad. What's what, give me the temps today, Bob. What's the, what's it at? Where you're in San Diego.
Bob: It's like 78 degrees.
Tony: And so now, Sean, what about you and LA same thing, right?
Shawn: 85 here. So we're miserable and it's spring. So everything's in bloom. It's just, it's so hard. You guys I'm suffering.
Tony: I got a notification on my iPhone today that said beware of April snow. And I was like, okay, that's it. I'm out.
Shawn: I would be out. Yes. That would not be.
Tony: So you guys have just put out a brand new resource for Christians all over the world and it's called wired to hear, and I'm really curious. What made you guys give, give me the origin story, your relationship? I almost feel like I'm working with a couple, so how'd you guys meet?
Shawn: Bob is not the kind of person that you would have that kind of talk with.
Bob and I, Bob, I actually came to help our organization. His wife was doing a project with my wife. We'd met through just an awesome conference that we went to where I'd spoken. Bob was and Laura, where some of the friends of the other speakers and hosts. And so they came in and just hung out. And I was joke around and said that Lauren did an inner healing session with my wife because we were renovating a house and anybody who's renovated a house needs at least 300 healing spaces, sessions, just because the contracting and stuff.
So I saw Lauren. Cuddling my wife and her arms. And they became fast friends after that, like has my wife's crying with Jesus. And so Bob came up with Lauren and he started to help us with our organization. He offered for help and we start to have these like really powerful conversations that I can just tell.
I'm going to tell him Bob NAMI, just to who Bob is, is, you know, 46 years. And one of the best painters, probably in America for a commercial painting for as a contractor, but he also has dedicated. Endless hours to ministries and startup businesses and organizations to bring organizational strength and also to help them with really good risk management.
That's not based on fear, but is based on faith. So he came into organization when we were growing, you know, both our business and our ministry were growing so fast. They had cashflow issues and staffing issues and just, we needed a lot of creativity and he started to have these conversations and I leave kind of, you know, different groups of.
Influencers and thought leaders are like, these people need you to, these people all need ABAB house in their life. And then through that, we just became really good friends and had these conversations. And I'm like this, I think we're swimming in this pool. And Bob I'll let you talk now. We're so it was pulling, I was like, Bob, we need to write a book together about business.
We need to, we need to write this because we really feel like the next great move of God is going to be with people in the marketplace who are positioned in influence and connection. And they may not be the top dog of the mountain, the King of the mountain, but they're going to be a Joseph for an Aster or a Daniel if they're not a Solomon.
So yeah. We just started to kind of go after that together and conversations and an amazing resource and book and podcasts were birthed out of it. So, Bob, yeah,
Bob: I'm Tony. I'm a relational guy, so I. When I'm in a relationship with someone, they can ask me to do something and I'll say yes.
I mean, I was minding my own business. I ran, I ran my business. I was a behind the scenes consultant to churches and nonprofits. And, and I was, you know, really happy doing that. But when I was 57, God called me out into something else. And into more that I never knew.
Was there. And you know, friends saw it in me and Sean was sure saw it in me. And, and so we, he and I had been having conversations about possibly writing a book about the marketplace, and then he, he had he had a word in 2018 that the next major move of God would come through marketplace ministry through the marketplace.
And that resonated to me, you know, my friend Sean talks, but then the prophetic Sean. Speaks a word like that. And I was like, huh, that's pretty interesting. And, and you know, the subtitle of our book is connecting God's voice to your life influence and career. And we, I think are so excited to be able to share this.
Amazing resource about hearing God in a different way. Maybe the thing you haven't heard, Sean, Sean has this incredible prophetic gift and he's practiced hearing God for, you know, all, since he was a kid. And, and so he's used to it and he's written all these different books about it. And so we teamed up together sort of his, his incredible wisdom and around hearing the Lord and the prophetic and my ability to kind of think practically.
And I think it came out good.
Tony: Yeah, for sure. And I, there's a, there's a lot there. I wanted to ask a drill down question Bob, on, on the risk may risk management based on faith, not fear. Cause I think that there's a lot of things that people are fearful of in the world that we live in right now. And then COVID is obviously played major havoc on churches, on people's lives.
And I know that there are some people listening to this who are thinking about risk management. I was wondering if you could give us just a small taste of what risk management with faith instead of fear looks like.
Bob: Ah, that's awesome. So think about this. Think about your personal budget. Think about you.
Most people make a finite amount of money. And after taxes, they bring home what they bring home. And so if month after month and year after year, their credit card debt is rising and they don't know why. What I like to do with people and with companies, especially is to drill down into that and say, well, let's look at why, because there's only two things you can do increase income or decrease expenses.
And so what I mean by you know, Risk management with faith is that if we're willing to take a strong look at actually what our financial picture is and figure out we're spending $200 a month more than we're bringing in, that gives us the faith to be able to say, all right, let's look at either increasing income, if we can, or.
More than likely D decreasing expenses. And so taking a hard look at it rather than putting our head in the sand, being willing to listen to God and being willing to understand that we're wired to hear God and all these different ways, especially for the practical things in our life.
Tony: Shawn I'm curious if you could kind of I, I imagine there's some of our friends who are listening, who aren't super familiar with the prophetic office and and I know in a lot of churches, it's not always common or maybe people are new to church. How would you describe You know, Bob mentioned you, you had a prophetic word in 2018.
How would you describe how all that works for somebody who has maybe not familiar with it before? Because it's, I love it. I'm a big Holy spirit guy, but I'm in Methodism and that is as bad as broad as it comes on this kind of stuff. And so I know a lot of the, at least the people in my church aren't super familiar with the prophetic office.
Could you, could you kind of give us a prophecy one Oh one kind of idea.
Shawn: And I just, just to give people safety, I've spoken at many Methodist churches and Lutheran churches and Catholic charismatic convention church. So I've, I've gone. I've had to, I've had to adapt in the sense of it. Cause I want to see this as broad as we can go.
I believe when Martin Luther you know, he, he nailed his, his thesis on the Wittenberg door for Jesus to really be known by us personally, that we wouldn't have anybody, you know, standing in the way mediating that, but then we'd have our own justified by own faith to know Jesus and what he did on the cross and who we're going to be eternally.
When you look at that, what he did there, he was basically reinstalling our personal responsibility for reading the Bible and also prayer. But if you take it even further, it's also to hear God from life. And we're not just talking about the cosmic James Earl Jones voice that comes and gives you a word, but we're talking about Jesus. But you know, when you look at, Jesus says in John 10, my sheep know my voice, then he says in John 14, 15, and 16, I'm going to leave you. But the Holy spirit will come. It's better that I go. So you can all have the connection I've had to the father.
The way I'm having it. And the Holy spirit will be that connection that we have the best prophetic texts of scripture is first Corinthians two, because Paul describes it. He says, Hey, I didn't come with wise and persuasive words, but I came with fear and trembling and I came with demonstrations of God's nature, but Jesus Jesus's nature.
And then it kind of goes into, you know the Holy spirit who lives in God. But he also lives in you this God who cannot fit in time and space through Jesus lives inside of you. And you're perceiving the thoughts of the father, the innermost thoughts of God, you have the perceptions or the mind of Christ to be able to think with God.
And we only have a few pictures of that old test, which was Solomon. When Solomon, all of a sudden doesn't get this wisdom, he gets the Shema of God, which means that. He's proceeding the way God would ruin Ray and the way that God would do city infrastructure, the way that God would build the temple, he is proceeding as though it's his own thoughts.
We also see this in Daniel one 17. And so you know, they were filled with wisdom and supernatural divine intelligence as the Hebrew word interpreted. And so there's this moment in time where Jesus goes to the cross and he restores us to relationship with the father the way he was in the design. And it says I'll live in you.
And there's all these scriptures like Ephesians one and two, where. Jesus is seated at the highest place than we're seated next to him, you know, and Ephesians two and not just, not just under him or not just to serve him, but with him, some Allen, John 17, when he was praying that we would be one as he is one that we would be in him.
So we could see the father. So you, you unpack all the scripture and you realize. There's a third category with John Martin Luther should have said, which is we should all be able to hear God or discern God know God for ourselves, biblically through prayer and also through knowing his voice too. So it's an internal process or an impression process.
And so even in this book, like when you look at wired to hear. We started out talking about this because I'll go to people I'm brought into companies are invited to film studios or with executives. And they'll say, I'm having a really hard time discerning what to do. We're at this, you know, we're stuck, whatever I'm like.
And I'll usually do an exercise with them where I'll say, tell me your last three huge wins. And in this career where you feel like, you know, this is just beyond belief and they'll tell me, and I'm like, okay, So, how did you hear God in that moment? Or how did God show up? They're like, well, he did. And it was just, it just happened.
I'm like, okay. So you're telling me, you're living this amazing life prayerfully waiting for these kinds of things to happen. Something happened that was above your pay grade, your education level, everything else, you have an Epic win, but you're responsible for it. Well, no, no, no. I'm not responding to glory.
Well, how did he get the glory? How does he get the glory? If we don't know how he responded to us? Is it just a one-off it just happened or can we see where he came in? And so we started the story with that. Businessman who, you know, we, we kind of reverse engineer this experience where he gave us some money for their wedding to buy a house, to root them and ground them into family and tradition.
And it was such an amazing breakthrough that brought deliverance over family wine. And the whole thing that when you hear the story, it's like a total God story. But when he tells a story without when he's just saying, Oh yeah, we give my son and daughter-in-law somebody to buy a house, change everything for them.
And what did it change when we start to engineer what it changed and then look back at how he, how he knew to do that. It was like, while I was in a prayer room, I was praying for somebody to give them for their wedding. Oh, wow. You know, like he realizes, like he's not the hero of the story. And so part of what Bob and I have tried to do through this book is.
Help people see that the majority interacts we're going to have a, God comes by instinct and gut intuition impression connection to the God within because he lives in us. I mean, he's like the only God of any other religion that says I'll dwell with you, not just to possess you, to control you, but I'll dwell with you.
So you become the fully formed version of what Jesus, the father and Holy spirit dreamed of.
Tony: Wow. I love that. Love it. So Bob I'm, I'm curious, how does this show up in your everyday life? Like, I mean, like I heard everything that Sean said, I believe it I'm here for it. It fires me up. It makes me want to run through walls, but how, how do we take this into the marketplace for everybody else?
Bob: I think it's such an interesting concept. And one of the things that we've learned as you know, Western believers is, you know, go in your prayer closet, have a prayer time. Some of us go in with lists somewhere, some of us like pray to tick off things, some of us worship. And we, we, we read scripture and we're some journal.
I mean, there's all these different ways, but what we've found, at least what I've found is the key to hearing God is listening. Hmm. And so if we would take time, you know, it, it took me a lot of time in my life to recognize that. Being quiet, listening, waiting for the Lord to answer. And what I found out is he's not always going to answer me when I'm in my prayer closet, when I'm praying about something, he uses all these different things, going to what Sean said.
You know, we have instinct, we have intuition, we have wisdom. And so God's going to speak to us through maybe a prophetic word, maybe a piece of scripture, maybe somebody praying for us or. Maybe he's going to give us an idea that we would never would have had, or we're in a conversation with someone.
And we're not even talking about the issue that is at hand before us. And that person starts speaking to the issue. And what I found is if we can change our mindset, And begin to include God into every area of our life and, and begin to include, begin to include this listening piece in a way that we never have before.
We'll hear God in these different ways. We'll hear him at work. Well, we'll hear him through our process. We'll hear him through agenda. He's speaking all the time and I think we've. Gotten to a place where we've pigeonholed him, where he can only speak a couple of different ways based on how our wiring is with him.
Shawn: And then our cash perform is unimportant to them or whatever, you know, like Bob and I are both practical. So we will have people listen to God over budgeting and over those kinds of things, like what are you feeling? Let's have a spiritual conversation about the practical things and let's go there. And I think that.
That's something that's unique with. Bob, and then I think I've, I've done this for a number of years as well with just how are we looking at all the decisions, the roadmap of what we're building and including God in it, not just as our God's my CEO, but actually God lives in me and is with me all the time.
And I'm just keeping directives, you know, once a month when there's a board meeting or not a board meeting, but a team meeting or once a year where there's a board meeting, but he's actually with us daily. So how do we include him? I think I love what Bob section says, because it's really brilliant because it's talking about including God.
And looking for those moments that I had that conversation with Tony yesterday and it changed my world. Wait a minute. That was a God thing. God orchestrated that. So that I would have answers that I prayed for my prayer closet for two months and recognizing it and going, okay, I got a pattern for how God's speaking to me this season.
I'm going to, I'm going to write this down and recognize it. So when, when it gets hard in a month from now, I'm going to look at all the things that God's saying. I know how to stand. Cause we stand firm in our faith in the word, but we also stand firm in our faith and how God's moving in our life and doing things in our life right now.
Tony: So, let me ask you this. I know that I am ridiculously manipulative at times, right? I just know that about myself. I resonate with Paul when he says we're all sinners of which I'm chief amongst you, right? That's that hit in my heart all the time. And so what's the litmus test to make sure that I'm not making my words.
God's words.
Bob: Well, Shawn calls that the God card. And Sean explain it. Cause I love it.
Shawn: Every time you explain it. And it's, it's basically just, you know, like when people haven't grown enough, like they're, they're trying to kill Goliath, but they haven't killed the lion and the bear. It's the track record that you have and your ability to connect to God and connect what he says that brings tangible change to you or the world around you.
I mean, there's the fruit of the spirit, which isn't written just for some believers. There was never a book written in the Bible for profits because profits are Christians. And, and, and anybody who hears from God is prophetic. Anybody who is a Christian can hear from God. So there's not like a specific guide.
Like you have a special privilege. We all have to line up with the fruit of the spirit. We all have to line up with first Corinthians 13 about love. That's just, that's the goal of this thing. So I think like when you start to track what God's showing you and how it's affecting your friends, your family, your business, your, you know, your ministry, whatever it is you have.
And you start to actually like, look at it. You're going to start to in yourself, disciple yourself. The spirit of profit is subject for profit. It says in first Corinthians 14, you start to disciple yourself because you go wait a minute. I said this on this level and there was zero fruit and I exaggerated and I got attention from that, but nothing happened.
I need to go back and take responsibility to rebuild credibility or a weight. I said this, and it was, you know, the first day most young people hear about in high school. If you're a Christian who's group is who they're going to marry because their hormones sound just like, God, they're like. That's the one and it's like, no, that's your warm Jesus.
And it's we, we go after what we want versus what God wants. So you're getting you're building. Track record and story and looking for when it wasn't God and looking, have you heard them about the little things before, even who I'm going to marry or what business to start? Have you walked with God for a while?
So when people haven't, you can usually tell because they usually use the God card, which means God told me no one can argue me out of it. This is what God said. And I was a pastor for 12 years, and I remember so many people would come to the church and be like, well, God told me this. And I'm like, the problem was you saying that is that there's no room.
For anything else it's so big in the room that fills all the space. So we can have a normal conversation because that's all you believe. And, and that's so defining, just become part of your identity. And so we need to like kind of pull back and go, we're all learning still. We're learning how to listen to God.
We're learning how to walk it out. I'm, you know, however many years into this decades into this thing, and I'm still, I had to take some responsibility for some. Big words I gave last year and it didn't happen publicly take responsibility, the same forums that I gave the words and say I was wrong. And I'm going to stay out of these kinds of subjects for a while and just really pray.
And I'd given some words that led me to believe this far, but it didn't work out. So I'm going to kind of pull back and. You know, not pull back from the prophetic or hearing God's voice or loving God, but pull back from that place of authority that it didn't work. It didn't work out. And I think when we have that, it helps us to go, wow.
If I'm being manipulative, I'm using gaining a lot, but I've something and inside somewhere, maybe it's ego, but it's not necessarily gaining a lot for Christ. And that's where we, we're always looking for. What's the measure we're gaining for Christ.
Tony: Bob, do you, do you see that same kind of approach and mentality working in the marketplace too?
Because it, it feels like it's fairly transferable.
Bob: Well, one of the things that I see is this compartmentalization from believers between home. Church work or there's a compartmentalization. And I think God just is clear that he wants us to be the same through all those areas. Absolutely. I think it works in the marketplace and I think we have the ability to ask God for these really technical and problem problems that we're having ask him into it.
Ask him to go before us. I think. You know, in my life I, in my business life, I have regular, I've got meetings that are really tough and I'm asking God, please go before me, please go to the people that I'm meeting with as they have an agenda. And I have an agenda and, you know, work, help us try to work through this so that we get a good solution together.
So Like S like Sean says, if you know, you walk in like to your wife and say, Hey, we're moving to Ohio. God told me, what is your wife? How can she, there's no way to argue.
Tony: But my wife, I tried to get my wife to move to New Jersey once with I was in the army and I said, Hey, babe, I think God wants us to move to New Jersey.
And she said, God's going to have to tell me himself.
God can do that. God can do that. Guess what guys we're still in Ohio. So we compromised.
Bob: But at the end of the day, if you come and say, I'm feeling like I want, I want to move and I'm feeling like God might be speaking to us, let's pray about it together. That's a completely different attitude than if we're trying to control or, and, or manipulate.
And I think. As we mature. And as we get wisdom, as believers, as, as we age, we recognize that some of these things that we're saying we, we can temper.
Tony: What was it like to put this writing together with, for the two of you personally? Like I I'm, I love to hear You know, origin stories. Right. And so what, how was this process for you guys?
What were some of the practical things that you guys did to stay rooted with God along the way? Because I would imagine to guys who are leaders in their field, who have words to say, like, that feels like it could be full of tension if you allowed it.
Shawn: Oh, my gosh, it was the best process cause we got to hang out together.
And so, you know, traveling Bob remember like we'd be on trips. I kind of hotel speaking at the next day and talking for hours in the, you know, the clubhouse or whatever, keep going.
Bob: Sean likes to make me nervous. I, you know, I wasn't really a big speaker and he had me going out and speak. He was on this 38 city tour and I would go meet him on different cities.
And then we'd speak about God hearing God and business. And. You know, it would be like 15 minutes before we're supposed to be on the stage and he say, let's go to Starbucks. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, so, you know, I would go to
Shawn: Starbucks. We always on time, but I can, I can count the times I can count the minutes and there's coffee to be had.
It doesn't matter if I'm gonna get up on stage in five minutes, I will count the minutes.
Tony: We have this app that resonates at a very deep, personal level for me.
Shawn: We literally, how many pools and hot tubs that we sit on, either bobs or mine or whatever. I mean, just like he would come up to LA and we just sit with my two little girls and we had like a little kitty kind of pool situation where it's like four feet deep, but you know, 15 feet long and ground weird kitty pool that was built for a movie at my old property.
And we'd sit in there and talk for an hour and just, we just had this comradery over this. And I think both of us, because we work with so many people organizationally and then also our own. Flyers. We just want people to be able to nail this and it's so easy, but it takes work that takes practice. It takes disciplines to be able to go after God and say, I don't want to just include you.
I want to, I want to be walked with you in this. And so for us, I like, I think we, we just came out of a lot of experience for the last, especially five or six years, both of us where it's like, we wanted to impart. What we saw working with these different organizations we've worked with, that seems to be transferable.
How do we get that into an individual? So we had like, I mean, we had way more talks than we had room for in the book. It was really hard to narrow it down. It was like, I loved everything that we both contributed and I'm like, there's material here for more. It was just like, and we got to include a lot of the people that we've had on our podcasts, like where they've shared about.
How gods come through and their legal career or in their farming career, whatever. We're able to take some of the nuggets from that too, and pull that into. So it wasn't just limited to Bob in my own experience, but like our podcast is now proved to be about 35 episodes of that particular podcast and have, have proved that.
God is moving in every quadrant of society in powerful ways. And when they share their God serve like, okay, I'm a lawyer, here's how I'm doing it. And this is how God's motivated me. And here's my story. Here's my faith. Plus this equals this. It changes everything. And so I think Bob and I had all that to like a reservoir of that that had just started, you know, in the middle of this.
And w I don't know, I love working with Bob.
Bob: Yeah, it was so fun. We, we finally would get together. I'd drive up to LA and we turned the recorder on and we'd record an hour and a half of us talking about a chapter and then go back and send it to get transcribed and then clean it up. And It was it, it was such an interesting practical journey from conversations to recordings, to transcripts, to writing to the finished product.
Tony: It was, it was really interesting. I'm curious, Bob, what did you learn about God in the process?
Bob: You know what, that he loves me. I mean, like our identities are, we are. At the baseline that we are loved sons and daughters of God. And no matter what we do, no matter how good we are, no matter how amazing of a thing we're doing, or no matter how we've blown it and gone bankrupt or made the biggest problem, we are still loved by God.
And I think if your listeners could understand that no matter where they are. This coat from COVID in their families and their businesses in their housing situations, in their finances. They are loved children of God, and God can do anything. He's the God of the miraculous. And he will overprocess and time work them out of work us all out of what we've gotten ourselves into.
Tony: Sean, same question to you. What did you learn about God in this process?
Shawn: No, I've written a lot of stuff about, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of articles about hearing God's voice. And my books have been some of the best-selling and not John rhe. It's such a niche genre, but my books I'm taking it beyond the niche.
So to write this, I didn't want to be, I didn't want to recreate any of that. I didn't want to like be this 2.01 of my other books, because I really wanted to write to people cause I'm in entertainment, history, and. One of these, I, I I'm encouraging people all the time. Like you're who are producers, directors, actors, all those people.
And they'll sit down with me and their faith and they're just like, they'll, they'll unpack a problem. And Jesus so beautifully helps them to whether it's through me or just through the conversation, just so beautifully helps them to navigate their own decision process. It's not just me like giving them a solution or wisdom.
It's like, they actually can feel like, wait a minute. God's. Oh, God did speak to me. This was that. And I just wanted people to have the experience of that on a Broadway. So I think I was learning just, it's almost like this untapped technology that's out there. If you think of prophecy and the prophetic has a technology that the church hasn't tapped into, but it could change everything.
Like when bill Gates brought computers into our houses and there are offices and everybody else would have their own. Like if, if everybody in the marketplace can feel like they have their own access to this connection to God, that actually brings real wisdom. Yeah. And brings real solutions to real problems.
It's a game changer for the church forever. Like we will never go back from that. So I think I had this dream brewing in my heart where I'm like, I'm in Bob and I are starting from this like, garage place. Just like, you guys need this and you guys need this. I have it in my heart to where like we're sitting in, you know, different types of white houses or we're sitting in.
Cause I, I have, and I've seen God come through with. A word or with wisdom or with intuition or whatever his spirit wants to bring. And Jesus, all of a sudden is in the center of a really big problem that only had two possibilities. And now all of a sudden Jesus is there. So I think I learned like, Part of my calling that I've, I've been a business most, most of these years as well alongside what I've done in ministry, but it hasn't ever been a real focus part of my calling.
Like I got like really released for this book to pursue entertainment, history with more energy I've ever done and to go after it, like, I'm actually like transitioned from an answer in ministry. I've transitioned from. A lot of other people's ministry stuff that I would contribute to. And I'm just doing our Christian media and our Christian online platform stuff on our podcasts and everything else.
All my other energy is like I'm in the industry doing business. So I think I learned like a permission to do way more through this process.
Tony: One of the things that I hear from both of you guys, is this sense of urgency around this idea. Like, Hey, we need to, we need to get this roll in. Right. And yet I know that there are a lot of Christians who are listening right now who have have long thought about hearing from God, but doesn't necessarily think it applies to them.
Right. And, or figuring out how to you know, kind of develop. But you guys call that, that instinct and intuition. So that the two questions I have is like, man, well, first of all, why is it so important that we do this now? And what's the first step in that, in that like, Hey, I'm ready to move. What's the next thing.
Bob: Well, I'll answer your second question first. And I think the first step is listening. I think the first step is being willing to ask God into the problem into the marketplace, into the issue and take the time to listen in a way that maybe we haven't before. Recognizing that he's going to speak to us in all these different ways and being patient with his voice.
Obviously, you know, we come to God, Lord, I'm in a crisis. I need this answer right now. And if we haven't been practicing, listening to the Lord, it's going to be hard in good times. It's going to be hard to hear him in the crisis times. And so I think. The process of learning to listen to God in a new and deeper way.
To me, it would be the first step.
Shawn: Listen to me, a revelation for our generation, that also is like, this is not just available. It's one of our main access points to relate to God. God is a relater and we've for so many years, I can imagine being the Martin Luther, you know, of his generation going, no, you don't need a priest to go to God for, you can pray.
And like how big of a deal that was to a whole generation of Christians who were like, I can read the Bible and the Bible gets printed. I'm in a printing press and only been out for a hundred years and it gets printed. It is the most widely distributed book for like another a hundred years, you know, since still is today.
But I mean, like, it was just so literacy went up because people want to read the Bible. So literacy illiteracy went down by like 26% in one year because people want to read the Bible. They learn how to read the, read the Bible. So to me, like that shows you like what happened in that reformation period, how the whole world got impacted by that one tool.
Being personalized to each believer. What would happen with this one tool where Paul says to us in first Corinthians 14, you know, go after love. Like your life depends on it, but eagerly desire, spiritual gifts, especially you can prophecy. And I know for me, Bob Griffin aid is Christianity too, but I grew up like I was a kid in the church and I remember we would take spiritual gift test.
Did you guys ever take those. Oh, yeah, for sure. And I had like, you know, you only got one and then you get like a support one. And my main gift was the gift of helps, which I was devastated over. Cause I wanted a powerful one. Not knowing that the gift of helps is actually really defining for me, but I really wanted something that sounded awesome.
And I didn't realize like in our church you couldn't have. Three, you couldn't have five, if you did, if you had helps, that's what you had and so your support. So I think that that's how we've come in. And the traditional church model is that we've really pigeonholed or limited or typecast people into one role or one responsibility.
They're the ones who are prophetic. I'm not prophetic. And we advocate our responsibility to relate to God the way he wants to be related to it. So for me, the reason why I have an urgency on this is because this will change Christianity and our generation as we. Here God for ourselves and powerful positions of secular occupation, we're going to hear God.
And we already see it happening with Mike Pence when he was vice-president. We saw it happening with Justin Bieber, Chris Pratt, Kanye West different people. And whether they're fully formed in their Christian journey or not, they've made massive decisions to create something that's creating a ripple effect.
Even Mel Gibson, who I've met with, he's a powerful believer and is reconstructing his whole career right now. Powerful Christian believer who hears from God had an assault from Satan, almost gave into it, almost took his life and turned to Jesus as his Lord and savior and said, I need you for real, for real this time for my whole life, everything I'm doing is for you.
And you see like what Mel Gibson did for the world. He brought a movie that 770 million people have seen that showed who Jesus says. So like, I just think if we're here for any, he did that because they heard from God. If we hear from God, it's going to change. It's a before and after moment for our history, for our generation, for our industry, for our family.
And we have to have a personal responsibility to do that because as part of the rights of every believer, just like Martin Luther created that for us, but we haven't actually enacted it. And the early Lutheran church, they believed this, but then it got lost or cessationism and through hardship. And I just believe it's time to restore this.
That's kind of the final frontier. If we can have that, if we can walk like Adam in the cool of the day with God. We'll have that full connection again, what's the world going to do?
Tony: Come on man. I'm here for it. Let's okay. All right. I get to, the problem is I get, when I hear you talk like that, I get super excited.
I'm like, what's next? What do we do next? I gotta get back to the interview questions. So one of the things that you guys both have going for you is that your leaders in your fields and your industries, right. You guys are, are both basically the bosses, right? Talk to the person who, whose entry level, middle management, not allowed to talk about faith at work.
The HR person is, is in the cubicle next door and like staring over them. How, how, how are they bringing? How did they do this? How do they do this? They don't want to feel like they have no latitude.
Shawn: What's that as Bob has, Bob has answered for us by, do you want to say one thing? Our book actually isn't about.
Sharing your faith at work. It's not about prophetic evangelism. It's not about those are all important, but they're a secondary conversation. They come after the, where our book is. I just want to say that. So Bob could set this up.
Bob: Exactly. Thank you for saying that. I mean, we, we believe that we should be light before men.
Now, if somebody came to my business and said, I want, you know, you'd given me a job so I can evangelize all my workers. I would throw them out the front door, my business up there, you have it.
I am serious. We're hitting metrics. We have production goals. We have all kinds of things. It's a business. And so but I hire people with character. I hire people with morality and I want to create a culture where. Love rules over anxiety, not a culture of fear, but a culture of love. And so how does that happen?
I mean, love and business. Are you kidding me? Well, if I'm bent towards the father, then people are seeing what the father is doing through me. I might not ever talk about the father or Jesus, but they're seeing things, you know, in a company that are different. Because the culture that we brought together.
So whether you're in an entry-level position or in the C-suites, you can bring your culture, you can bring your love of Jesus. You can bring your work ethic, your grit, your determination. You can bring your best. You can show up at the table or out on the floor and you can bring your best. And that's what we're advocating is come to the marketplace and bring your best.
Shawn: When I worked for Daniel, right? So Daniel's in Babylon and I've worked for him. He didn't, he couldn't preach the gospel in the traditional sense. He couldn't share the Jewish traditions. And as a matter of fact, they were being warred against even as he was doing them. But, but everybody just kept noticing him, even after an African has his dad and the, you know, the hand comes up on the wall and they're wondering what to do with.
This weird vision. And they're like, there was a man who worked for your dad. Like he still had a reputation as being the one who brought solutions to problems that only he could bring. And so I think like, I love that about Bob, because when you walk through Bob's office and you meet his employees, they like, there's not a lot of more Christians necessarily.
I don't know. I couldn't judge it. I don't, I've never had a conversation. They were just great people. And they have such an esteem for Bob and they just love him. They just absolutely love him as a CEO. And I'm sure they've had their problems with them. I mean, we all have a problems with our boss and whatever, but they just admire him because of the culture he said.
And one of the women who works for me now, her and her husband are in our production company. I asked her that today, this is 20 years later. Whenever I asked her, what was your favorite job you've ever done it? And I said, besides here, you know, joking around, she goes, I used to work. Remember I worked for Bob Hasson only for a couple of years, right?
Bob. Yeah, like not for very long. And she said that was my favorite job being around Bob and just being around the environment he put together.
Bob: Well, we put a filter together. We put a culture together. Like where do you want to work? You, you, you were in the service, right? Tony, you have, you know, you had fellows, like obviously it was an iron fist, but you, you had comradery with the people that you were with.
And that's what we, that's what we want to do. We want to be one of the fellows we want to work together. If we show up, we want to be able to have our best show up, not shot down. Like that's a dumb idea. We want all ideas. And I think, you know, when you look out to the interests of others, when you go into somebody's office and say, Hey, how's your kids or your grandkids or your, or how your mom doing or your dog, whatever it is, when you look out to the interest of others.
People just feel cared for. And that's not something that's a formula. It's not something that is in business books. It's just, it's, it's what Jesus writes about. Look out to the interest of others.
Tony: Well, and the cool part about that is, is that anybody can do it, right. You don't need no matter where you are in the company, whether, you know, to your point, whether you're in the field or in the C-suites like you can, you can, anybody can do that.
That's just living out your faith on an everyday basis. Right? Like it's and, and that's why I think, I think you guys are really onto something. You know, with this idea about the marketplace being the next big, you know, ministry field, or, you know, space where we really have the opportunity to bring the lights.
W what do you guys hope happens with this? I mean, what's, what's this look like? How do we know if we've done this well, how do we measure this? Or should we even be measuring this? Maybe that's a, an asinine question.
Shawn: No, we should be, we should always measure for metrics, have changed to me in my mind.
I'm such a, like a, I want to see that I do something and then something in my life benefits or changes because of it. So to me, if you read the book where you're going to start having conversations, where you're looking for, how God is showing up in your life, that's the goal is like, how is he showing up?
And then how can I partner to that more versus letting it happen to me, it's proactive versus reactive. And so I think most of the Christians who read this bird are going to recognize themselves in parts of it and hardly knew it was gonna be a one-on-one and say, I've never heard God, they're going to go, Oh, Oh, okay.
So I think it's like, there'll be accountable to what they've seen. So they'll start to go. Now I can partner. Now I can connect. Now it can make better decisions based on this. Now I can spend more time here instead of here. Now I can, you know, so to me, it's like it's going to impart a lot of faith. I'm my longterm goal, especially through our podcasts and some of the media we're doing is that.
There's enough business. Like faith comes by hearing. So like, if you hear someone's story who's in your similar industry and you hear how they're doing it and opens up, it's better than a hundred sermons. It opens up your faith and capacity to do it. So between the message that we teach and between the demonstration of the people that were showing off their story, like Bob and I, this is the only time we're being the ones who we talked about ourselves, like through the talking about the book.
Other than that, like when we're on the show, we're talking about everybody else. So it's like, You know, you get to hear, what does it look like to do law? Like we've talked to three different lawyers on our podcast. What does it look like to do a wall out of a place of faith where you're having great results, you're in the top of your field, but you're a Christian.
Like there's hardly any Christian lawyers who are doing that and we're showing it off. And now we've had people contact us. They're like young people are like, I wanted to go into a law degree, but I just felt like it was so godless. I almost said no, but I heard this podcast and like, I get it now I see Jesus is that the chief of justice, you know, and the entire universe.
And of course the law and changing policy as part of what he wants to do. But our past generation, like my parents' generation, they thought we were supposed to separate from the world and escape the world and built. And this generation like me is going back into the world and saying, no, no, no. We want to occupy as much space as we can.
So Jesus can get the fullness of his reward. That's my passion.
Bob: You know, you know, I'm like you, I listened to him and I'm like, Yes.
Tony: Yes. Listen, Bob, I will tell you that. I'll tell you this as just somebody who's now talked to you guys and listen to you guys. Tell your story for the last 40 minutes. Bob, you bake Sean a lot better in the sense of like, Well, in the sense of like, you have this incredible persona of, of just calm and strength that God, God exudes from you in a very relaxed way.
And so while I identify more with Sean, because I'm a hype guy, like I I'm, I got a lot of like, I'm just a hype guy. Right. But, but, but your presence. Makes this better. So I, I, you know, it's okay to listen and be thankful for Shawn and I am too, but just as I've been really touched by your presence in this podcast and the way that you carry yourself.
And I, when I look at somebody like you, I think, man, that's the kind of, I want to be when I grow up.
Bob: Totally.
Shawn: Thank you.
Bob: I'm your hype man. Enough words of affirmation.
Well, I think we've, we've had this, an incredible journey so far to bring God in a way that I think at the end of the day, you know, Tony, it's going to be okay. That's like, I can tell you from my entire career and knowing and loving God is going to be okay, no matter what we're going through right now, God's going to bring us through it.
He's good. And if we can learn to listen to his voice and hear his voice, we're going to go through ups and downs and trials and tribulations, but it's going to be okay. We're going to come out the other side. It's he promises that and we do. And so I've, I've consulted with countless business leaders and ministry leaders, and they always come out through the other side.
And so I think we just need courage to know we're on a road, partnered with Jesus and he's going to take us through to the other side.
Tony: I love it. Okay. I know my listeners are gonna want to connect with you guys. Follow you on the inner webs. Where is the best place to learn all about Sean and Bob?
Shawn: Right now it's the bowls, ministries app or bowls, ministries.com B O L Z. And you can also go to our personal social media pages like Facebook and Instagram. We both have our own Bob Hassett and Shawn Bolz Hasson sound as spelled like Hassan. Just kidding. Whereas tell them, this is how we call you, but he's Jewish white man.
So we call them Rubin Hassan. That's great.
Bob and I both through also get the book at Amazon or at bull's misuse or comedy, where are you going to get it?
Tony: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. Last question. I always love to ask people. It's an advice question, except I get to you give yourself one piece of advice and I get to take you to a very specific time.
And so so Sean, I'm going to start with you and ask you. To give yourself one piece of advice. And the moment after you give that prophetic word in 2018 about the marketplace, that's now several years ago, if you could go back and give that version of yourself, one piece of advice about the journey you're about to go on, what would,
Shawn: Oh, that's a good one.
Well, I think I think probably to strengthen the confidence level of going after. Cause I didn't realize we, we were like scheduled for a ministry tour, 25, 35 cities already. And we're still scheduling right then. And I didn't want to do it anymore. Like I knew that I was changing and shifting, but everybody was kind of like, no, this is like, we're supposed to be something happens in the live meetings.
That's important. And I think I would have given myself more confidence for what I'm walking in now because it felt so. Weird in. So fish out of water ish, even though there's been some really natural habitation in it. So I think I would have just been like, Hey, you're seasoned. Even waiting that God gave you a reason to move to LA for.
And all that you've been doing is coming. And so just get, be confident and, and have faith for that, even in the midst of this weird time, because I think I would have helped not go through such an unsettling kind of, wow. Wow.
Tony: Wow. That's good. That's real good here. Bob let's, let's take you to The very first time you're getting ready to meet Sean and begin this journey of, of what is now public ministry.
If you could go back and talk to that younger version of Bob and, and aside from anything related to his house development, that whole story there, w what's the one piece of advice that you would give yourself?
Bob: I think. And it's funny to say this cause I'm very secure. I was really insecure. I was really insecure that I had a voice that that anything that I had to say was valuable.
And you know, what I said earlier about my identity is that I'm a loved son of God. If I could have appropriated that earlier. To allow my voice to just come out. Sean had to drag me out. He saw something in me, you know, and he would drag it out. And, and and so I think just having the security that when God asks you to do something, he's going to show up.
One of the things, you know, that I think is, you know, if I'm unqualified or under-qualified for something which I felt in, in this whole process, is it. That's right where God wants me, because then I need him and I'm not acting out of my own strength. So I think that's the answer and that's by the way, a very good question.
Tony: Well, thank you. And thank you both so much for your generosity today, with your time and your writing and your heart and what you're doing for the kingdom. I absolutely loved our time together. So thank you guys so much, and I'm praying for this book. And. And really so that it just becomes part of a movement so that the church can be in the marketplace as God intended it to be, to be the light.
So thank you guys.
Shawn: Thank you so much, Tony.
Tony: I told you guys what an incredible conversation. I love, the way that Sean and Bob are both super practical. They take a very commercial. And I say commercial, but I really mean like real life view of how to connect with God. They're both leaders in their field.
And I just think there's a word for us on changing mindset and hearing God in different ways and including God in the conversation. I also really appreciated the part about manipulation versus obedience. So many good nuggets in here. I know you enjoyed it too. If you need to see the full transcripts, don't forget, you can check them out.
Reclamation, podcast.com and the ways that you can help the podcast. Subscribe, leave a comment rating or review share with a friend. I'm so thankful for you guys. And I can't wait for next week. Another free episode. You'll never miss it as long as you subscribe. Thank you guys so much and we'll connect real soon.
