Igniting Transformation in the Marketplace – with Kraig Bougher – [Ep. 284]

Linda J. Hansen:  Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host of the Prosperity 101® Podcast, where we seek to unleash the power of employers to reclaim and preserve America by Connecting Boardroom to Breakroom® and policy to paycheck. Employers educating employees about public policy issues that affect their jobs can lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. 

We help people understand the foundations of true prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect prosperity by Becoming Informed, Involved, and Impactful®. To access our podcast library and resources, or to sign our Employers Unleashed™ Pledge, visit Prosperity101.com.

Thank you so much for joining with me today. It is just a pleasure to have you in the audience as always. And I have a wonderful guest, but before I introduce my guest today, I do want to say a special thank you to our prosperity partners, those who help us keep the podcast on the air with their financial gifts, either a one time gift or monthly donations.

So whatever you can do, please go to prosperity101.com and become a prosperity partner. And I'd like to say thank you to our strategic partners as well. Those who are like-minded business leaders who decide to partner with us in various ways.

So please go to their websites, all listed in show notes and on our website, prosperity101.com. You can find out more about each one of our strategic partners, and we say thank you to everyone who helps us keep this podcast on the air. So today, my guest is someone who is a strategic partner, and is someone who has been really enthusiastic about the work of Prosperity 101® and Employers Unleashed™ and everything we're doing in the marketplace, and that is Kraig Bougher.

Kraig Bougher is the co-owner of Xtreme Recognition, which is a promotional products and recognition program company. They are based in Nebraska, but they serve people nationwide. I am so thankful to know Kraig and his wife, Desiree. Kraig has also founded Ignite Kingdom Group, a wonderful ministry for Christian business leaders. And he and his wife, Desiree, who I mentioned, co-host the Ignite Kingdom Talk podcast. And this is a great podcast where they seek to share their heart for business leaders and how they would like to see the marketplace become the miracle place.

So thank you, Kraig, for joining with me today. 

Kraig Bougher: Thank you. 

Linda J. Hansen: I think you've been on the podcast before. I know you have, and it's just a joy to have you back. Thank you.

Kraig Bougher: Well, thank you for inviting me. It's always good to be with you, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it is just great. Your heart for business leaders and your desire to help people truly prosper. And I love the way that we think about some of the same things, that prospering or prosperity is not money.

I mean, it's great when money comes, but it's really about human flourishing and freedom and the opportunity to gain that wealth or the opportunity to share that. And we just really appreciate that, that you see the business world, the marketplace as a ministry place. And I see that as well.

And so tell me why you say the marketplace can become the miracle place.

Kraig Bougher: Yeah, Linda, I just get excited about it. And, you think of all the things that are going on in our world today. And it's like if we the business, Christian business owners, entrepreneurs, those business leaders step up and really, truly be the men and women God has called us to be.

I just think that it would absolutely become the miracle place. I think we would see signs and wonders. You know, I always think back on why we're doing what we're doing.

And I remember when Des and I first stepped out into business and on our own. There was no place. This was back in ‘91, Linda, and there was nobody out there that was helping anybody.

And I just kept thinking, there were so many times even within the Christian… within the church, we reached out even with people within the church. And I'm not saying they didn't help. I just don't think they knew how to help.

I don't think they knew how to even guide you. It was just back in the day, it was just, hey, go, go work hard. And, it might happen, and it was just kind of… that's really all it was.

And I just don't ever want to see anybody in that situation again. You know, there's so many people stepping into business for the first time. There's so many people that have had businesses for so long, and maybe they're up against a wall.

Maybe they've had success, but they don't know how to take it to the next level. And when we come together, these like-minded men and women come together with this Ignite community, I just think it's really difficult not to get the help that you need, because there's so many great, great people that have been there, been there in your shoes and are willing, willing to help, willing to provide some counsel or instructions or warning signs saying, hey, don't go this way. I've done that. It was a bad mistake. You can avoid that. 

So that's really what Ignite is all about. But yes, let's make the marketplace the miracle place. And it starts with you. It starts with me.

And you think of the people that Jesus hung out with. I mean, how many of those people were business owners? And everything they did, almost everything they did was in the marketplace.

And the miracles took place in the marketplace. And I think sometimes we think that we have to be within the four walls of the church to see signs and wonders, to see things happen. And I just think God's about to do something. I think He is doing something in the marketplace in a greater way, like never before.

Linda J. Hansen: I agree so much that He's doing something in the marketplace as someone who's been involved in the Christian business marketplace for years and years, the growth and the openness and the expansion of it and is so encouraging to see so many more Christians step up and be willing to be bold and be willing to say, I run my business. Yes, as a business, but it's a ministry because it's my calling. We've often referred to them as BAMs, business as ministries or a business tree.

I mean, why do we work? Why do we work? To provide for our families, provide for others. We serve the Lord. You know, Colossians tells us whatever we do, do it as serving to the Lord and not to men. And that's our worship– is our work.

Work doesn't need to be worshiped. It needs to become our worship, a way that we serve the Lord. And I just think it's a wonderful thing that you're doing, helping build up business leaders and helping them to have the tools and the fellowship needed to have the wisdom also to grow their businesses.

And in addition, take care of their families, take care of their relationships with Jesus Christ, take care of their engagement with their communities, become well-rounded individuals. That's where we make the marketplace, the miracle place, because we keep everything in perspective. And that's one thing I really appreciate about Ignite and Ignite does not claim to be the know-all be-all either.

I love the humility that you have, that there's such a sense of unity in terms of working with other believers and other Christian groups. And I just appreciate that because that's something that's been rare at times to see. And it's really great to see that in Ignite because all the people, it's just a wonderful fellowship of people that come together.

So how can people learn more about Ignite? I'm sure we'll give the website at the end as well, but here we're talking about this great organization and we mentioned your business. So how can people contact you with both and what would that do for them?

Kraig Bougher: Well, you can always go to Ignite-KG, as in Kingdom Group, KG.org. All the information is there and there's so many ways to get involved. There's so many ways that you can actually partner with Ignite.

And when you partner with Ignite, you're actually doing something. You're actually getting something. You can come in at the Kingdom Networking.

And those networkers, they get together once a month and some of those meet online. A lot of them meet in person in different areas all throughout the U.S. And they really encourage one another to help each other build their business. They want to actually network with one another and they find out what that individual does and the type of clientele that they're looking for.

It's awesome. It's a lot of fun that they meet. Like I said, they meet once a week for an hour and a half. You can join something like that. You can join a partner group, which a partner group, they meet every single week by Zoom. And the groups are small.

They're intimate. There are no more than eight per group. And we have men's groups, ladies groups, and they meet for an hour. And the beautiful thing about this is not all of them are business owners, but you've got the business, they're business leaders. And the thing I love about those groups is we have what we call the mission impact plan. And every year, every person within that group will go over their mission impact plan to the group and what they're doing is they're presenting their personal mission statement. It's beautiful. 

Every business owner has their own mission statement, but very few individuals have a mission statement for life, for their marriage, for family, all these other areas. And the rest of the group really becomes your personal advisory board to help you stay on track, to encourage you if you fall, they want to help you get back up. So that's the partnership group. 

We also have a group that are more of the movers and shakers. This is the mastermind group, and this is the kingdom board of advisors. And these guys will have two retreats that they'll do a year. Plus, we have the conference as well. The conference is for everybody, but the mastermind group is more of, like I said, Linda, these are kind of like the movers and shakers. They're risk takers. These guys and gals have been there, done that. They're a lot of fun to hang out with.

So there's really three ways to get involved. And I always tell people, we always have an annual conference. This conference is coming up in July, July 24th and 25th at the JW Marriott in downtown Nashville this year.

I would encourage people, just go, just get in the room with those like-minded people and watch what God will do. Watch who he'll align you with. That's what I love about what we're doing and what God is putting together.

Because yeah, we get some great speakers, fantastic speakers. But so much of it, Linda, you've been to so many of them. In fact, we're going to one here next month or this month down in Florida. But it's the people sometimes that you're just associated with, that you're around, that you lift up one another. You know, the Lord talks about iron sharpening iron. And my gosh, what a true statement, especially when you're in that room with other like-minded believers.

And that's what Ignite is all about. So I encourage anyone to go to that website, check us out. And if you want to go further, get yourself in the room at the conference this July 24th and 25th in Nashville.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, I think it's excellent and it'll be great to be in the room in July in Nashville. And you mentioned going to other conferences and things. I love that you support other Christian organizations.

We're both going to the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce conference. And I think that's great. We're seeing many, many Christian marketplace ministries and organizations coming together at something like that.

And that's new. I see the Lord building a unity among the believers that has not been as present in years past. There's been so many silos, and we haven't really been working in the marketplace like the body of Christ, where one person is the arm, one's the leg, one's the kidney, one's the lungs.

You know, that's when we all do what the Lord called us to do and don't try to be the other person, we can truly fulfill the call of God and create that beautiful place of unity and gathering that blesses others and blesses the Lord. And you mentioned, too, that mission impact and wanting to have impact. And I just want to let people know, too, one of the things that I've been doing in terms of really working to have impact, and I know that this is something Ignite wants to do as well, have impact into the culture, have impact into the culture and helping business leaders to absolutely positively impact the culture.

And you've done that. You've done that in your business, but you've even taken it one step further by starting this nonprofit and having this podcast and doing these conferences. Well, not every business leader can do that. Not every business leader has the opportunity to have that wide a reach. Some business leaders really only can look very locally at their own business. What can they do?

And so this is why I started the Employers Unleashed™ community, which is not a competition of any sort with any other organization or anything. It's just an offering that I have, which is a monthly webinar that business leaders can join, and each month we focus on a mountain of culture. If we look at seven mountains of culture, these have been discussed for decades now, Bill Bright from Campus Crusade for Christ and Lauren Cunningham from Youth With a Mission, I think were the first ones to coin it, but many people speak of the seven mountains of culture, and I'm so thrilled to be able to offer this to business leaders. 

We're taking one mountain of culture per month and having this monthly webinar where we dive in and we do an assessment and say, how is my business impacting this mountain of culture? Am I doing what I can to help bring positive values and positive things to this mountain of culture? And it's been great to have– some of the Ignite members have been on– and it's been great to have these business leaders discussing little things, little things that they can do to impact each mountain.

And that's where I see the body of Christ, just building up each other and being able to help one another to do the next thing. We don't always have to do a great big thing. We just have to do the next thing and God will lead us.

Kraig Bougher: Yeah, that's right.

Linda J. Hansen: And so what would you say to employers, especially to Christian employers who want to impact the culture and they want to make a difference and help people also to understand not just our faith, but the policies? 

You know, I will say I appreciate so much that you give me an opportunity frequently to address Ignite members on policy issues that affect business leaders and affect employees and just help people be aware of how to be engaged and involve citizens because that's part of our calling, praying for our leaders, being active citizens. It's part of how God wants us to be responsible citizens.

And you have opened that door up to help educate employers. And so what would you say to employers who might be hesitant about talking about these things to their employees, or maybe they just aren't sure what to do or say, what would you do to encourage them?

Kraig Bougher: My first thing I would say is fall in love with Jesus all over again. I know that entails a lot, but it's like we need a spirit of boldness.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes.

Kraig Bougher: And it's really the thing, Linda, it goes back to when this whole thing started, because it started out of frustration for me, where I was personally at, during COVID, there's a lot there. I'm not going to go into it right now, but picking up the word of God and just saying, I'm either going to believe this from start to finish and everything in between, or I'm just done. And that's where we need to be.

That's where we almost need to get as believers and as the business owners, executives, because we have to have that boldness to step up and be who he's really called us to be. And because for so long, for so long, I've kept him at the door of the business. I kept him at the door of the appointment that I was going into.

And I just look at that and I said, man, where would I be if I would have actually brought him with me and not held back and not cared what people think because of everything that he's done for me, everything he's done for us. And it's time that we be that person. And that's what he's called us to be. That's what he's called us. You know, I always used to think it's the pastor's job. I'm not the pastor.

And as a business owner, yeah, this is my ministry. And I'm in full time ministry. And it's not that I just don't want to be. If– and this happened to me, Linda, where somebody came up to me and I was in a conversation with somebody else, we were talking about church and that individual looked at me and said, well, gee, Kraig, I didn't know you were a believer. And it was just like that just really hit me. And he didn't mean it in a mean way, but it was just like.

But I took it as. Man, does my walk with Christ suck that bad? Because if someone– if I'm not showing, if I'm not bearing some kind of fruit with my walk, then something's wrong.

And I knew I needed to make a change. And like I said, Linda, I just think we have to come to that place where we say I'm not going to hold back anymore, and it might start off small. You don't have to necessarily break down the door, but just start off with a time of prayer, a time of reading, reading the scripture.

You'll be surprised. You'll be surprised at how much people appreciate it. I think you'll be shocked. I always refer back to Des, Des is one of those people and Linda, you know her, she just doesn't hold back at all.

She doesn't hold back at all. And there's been many times where we've been in our office. You can see this is kind of the showroom of so many items that you can do with Xtreme Recognition.

And we'll be in a meeting and someone will say, well, I've got a doctor's appointment or something that's coming up. And the report's not good. And Des will just say, well, can I pray right now? And they just kind of look and they and they say, yes, yeah, you can. And she'll just start praying. And it's absolutely incredible. It's absolutely incredible. And here is a person that loves Jesus so much. 

I look up to my wife where she's at. She doesn't hold back. It's all about Him. And she just has the relationship that she has with the Lord and it is incredible. But she doesn't hold back. And to me, I look at that and I say, well, what we can say so easily, we can say, oh, that's just her, and that's that's supposed to be me. That's supposed to be us. That's supposed to be everyone. That's the relationship that we're supposed to have. We're in a dark, dark world.

And we can't rely on somebody else to share the gospel. And most of the time that gospel isn't by so much what you say, but it's how that life that you lead. But we can't avoid words either.

If somebody needs prayer, you're right there with that person. If someone needs help in whatever it might be, there's opportunities that we walk away from because we don't want to offend somebody. We don't want somebody to say no or feel awkward or us feel awkward. We don't want to be there. But if not us, who? And it's time.

It is time, Linda. And I think we have– I've said this before, I just think there's such a sense of urgency where we are at as a nation, where we are at with believers. I'm not talking politically or that Trump's in office. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is I believe in my heart that we have a short window, an opportunity and where there is a lot more freedom than what there used to be.

I think we need to take advantage of that. I think we need to step our game up and be that light because the dark is even darker than what it ever has been before. But the light that I'm seeing is brighter than it ever has been before. And that light defeats darkness every single time.

Linda J. Hansen: Every single time. And it is brighter. And I really appreciate that.

I feel like the phrase that kept coming to my mind throughout this interview is the church has left the building.

Kraig Bougher: Yeah.

Linda J. Hansen: And I feel like, yes, we want to support local churches. And that's so important. That's great. But you are right. I remember Keith Green. He passed away many years ago. But he had great music in the 70s and 80s. I can't remember when he died. But he was very famous at the time and just loved the Lord.

He was so on fire for the Lord. And one of the things he said is going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger. And I always just love that phrase.

Because people think it's just a churchy thing. But no. When you mentioned, what do we need to do to help our culture? What do we need to do to help our businesses? We need to, as you said, fall in love with Jesus all over again. Just build ourselves up in Him.

And then He helps us to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And this doesn't mean we go around all pious or super spiritual or anything. It means we love. We love people. We love people with the love of Jesus, the unconditional love of Jesus. And we do things with excellence.

When we're doing business, we do it authentically and honestly and with integrity. We treat our customers, our vendors, our employees with care and concern. And we treat them like we'd like to be treated.

There's so many ways that we can honor Christ in our businesses, which helps to grow business. It helps to grow communities. It helps to grow a strong nation. And we need to make sure we honor families too, because families are the bedrock of society. So when we can do that in our businesses, because we love the Lord, I mean, it's revolutionary. 

And it shows the church has left the building. We are out. And we are in the marketplace. Jesus, I'll just close with this. Jesus spoke in the marketplace more than anywhere else. You kind of brought that up before. And entrepreneurship and business and stuff was so important to Him.

He made sure people had a way to earn their money. And He had a way for them to be provided for. And it's just a beautiful picture of how he gives us each different gifts and abilities to serve one another.

So before we close, what would be your final comments? And then we will also give the information once more so people can go to Ignite Kingdom Group and look at how to sign up for the conference in July.

Kraig Bougher: Yeah, I would have to say, Linda, you've talked about running your business and those type of things, which is so, so good. So good. But I just think that there's so much of it now.

It's all about that end time harvest. And who better to fund that end time harvest than Christian business owners and entrepreneurs? And it's exciting. It's exciting to live in these times that we're living in. And I know that God is doing something. And I just want everything that he has for us.

Yes, the conference coming up in July, July 24th and 25th at the JW Marriott in downtown Nashville. You don't want to miss that. The other thing, Linda, is the community call. It's the second Tuesday of each month at noon central. Here again, anyone can join this. Anyone can join this.

And we've had some great speakers in the past, and we've got some great speakers that are coming up this month. We've got a handful of business owners that are going to be sharing. I know in May, I think it's Pastor Shayon is going to be the speaker for us in May. So we've got some cool, cool things that are happening. So get involved and go to ignite-kg.org.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, I appreciate that so much. And as I think about my closing comments for this, it's like what I do with employers or try to do with employers and what I do with Prosperity 101® is really keeping the soil fertile for the gospel. We talked about that, the soil of the human heart, fertile for the gospel.

And as we do that by protecting freedom and helping to make sure our government allows us to have religious freedom and freedom of commerce and all of the rights that we have under God, guaranteed by our constitution, is we protect those. And then we also share that in the marketplace. And you brought up a really good point about how Christian business leaders, as we grow our businesses, we give.

We give. You know, we can share that around the world. And give for good purposes without that. You know, there are the orphanages, the hospitals, the Bibles being sent to unreached peoples. And, it's just a beautiful thing that we can do. I know some of the Ignite members, they were very generous and provided temporary homes for Hurricane Helene victims.

And what a beautiful way to say this is not my money, it's God's money. And we grow it for the purpose of serving. And, yeah, so it's, it's great.

So, well, thank you, Kraig, I look forward to having you back again. And between now and then, I hope all the audience members will go to ignite-kg.org and look at the website and the information about the conference and the community call. And thank you, thank you for all that you do for serving the Lord in your business and just really helping other business leaders to thank you.

Kraig Bougher: Thank you. 

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please, subscribe, share, and give us a great review. Don’t forget to visit Prosperity101.com to sign our Employers Unleashed™ pledge, to access our entire podcast library, or to discover resources for use in your workplace. Let us know how we can serve you. Contact us today at Prosperity101.com.