“You may be a CEO who is a Christian, but not a Christian CEO.” These are the words that I believe eventually led to my husband’s departure from his company.
He had run a successful tech company for more than a decade, and 2020 was the most profitable year yet. However, identity politics led the company to value cultural compliance over performance. Like many other Christians, Andrew lost his position instead of his faith. We had prayed for God to deliver us and save us from losing the job and the many years we had invested, but he did not.
Within a few months of leaving the company, Andrew started a job board. He had been studying labor market data and seeing the pending labor shortage. This combined with the overwhelming woke culture dominating corporate America made a job board an obvious and strategic place to start the fight. He wanted those who value freedom of speech to be able to work with like-minded employers and colleagues rather than keeping their heads down and hoping they would not run afoul of their HR departments.
Redballoon.work was born in early August to provide an off-ramp for conservatives. Within a month, Joe Biden mandated vaccines in a press conference, which made political and religious compliance the pressing issue for millions of workers in this country.
RedBalloon is a small new start-up, not a large profitable tech business like Andrew has run in the past. However, in the few months he has been at this adventure, what has been obvious is that God did not deliver us when we asked — because he was redeploying us, as he is doing with many of his people.
No soldier complains about being “fired” from one base to move to another. It might not be what he wanted, but it is his duty as a soldier, and he may not shirk it. For our family and I believe many others right now, God is writing a bigger story of deliverance than we can see.
In 25 years of tech experience, Andrew has never experienced anything like the response he has received to this job board. Christians from across the theological spectrum along with secular conservatives have volunteered their time because they see RedBalloon as pivotal work, many of them labeling it “God’s work.”
Andrew receives thank-you notes daily from people grateful someone is standing up in the business space. Courage is attractive and contagious, and God calls his people to it. One employer told us, “I think I had better die on this hill, or there won’t be any left.”
All throughout this country, conservatives are awakening and fighting courageously, willing to risk livelihoods, respect, and friendships rather than violate their consciences. Christians and other conservatives are starting businesses, holding onto businesses rather than selling and surrendering cultural control, and looking to invest their money in culturally aligned companies.
Job seekers are moving their families to find work with freedom-loving employers. Canceling conservatives is not silencing or cowing them. It is driving Christians to consider the connections between their faith and their money and jobs.
For years, the evangelical church has focused so narrowly on conversion that it has neglected to teach Christians about the importance and purpose of vocations. Many are unprepared for the challenges they now face in the workplace, but the realization that faith should inform all of life is growing. The more extravagant the demands of our authorities become, the more eyes are opened and consciences fixed.
God is using draconian political leaders and rabid wokesters to do his work and awaken his people. The story of the Exodus is a good reminder that God likes to deliver out of extreme difficulty at the very last minute, and sometimes later. He uses the machinations of those in power as a means of his deliverance.
If Pharaoh had not followed Moses and the Israelites to destroy them, Pharaoh would not have driven his army into the sea. If Judas had not betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees, we would be lost and without hope. In the same way, God is using those who hate him to deliver his people. This is God’s war. Go where he sends you, and take heart.
