From the Desk of Rick Boxx
In 2001, God encouraged me to launch what became Integrity Resource Center. The vision was to equip 100,000 business leaders to apply Biblical principles to their work. At that time, it seemed impossible!
As pioneers in the faith at work movement, it was hard work adding a few leaders at a time through our daily broadcast emails, local events and Bible study materials. Starting in 2001, it took 14 years to engage and equip 18,000 business leaders.
Even more challenging, a friend of the ministry encouraged me to rethink the 100,000 figure. He explained that possibly our goal of 100,000 leaders was no longer a God sized goal. Maybe, we needed to pray about raising the bar.
After much prayer, our board concurred and modified our vision to “One million connected leaders modeling Biblical principles in their workplace.” Our original vision of 100,000 became an interim goal to reach by 2021.
So how are we doing? Since 2015, thanks in part to expanding into different cities, God has amazed us with a 4-fold increase in “equipped” leaders to more than 72,000. God willing, we will reach 100,000 earlier than anticipated!
To all of you who have prayed, rooted for us and financially partnered with us on this journey, we say thank you!
But reaching one million leaders required a new strategy, one that moved from adding leaders to multiplying leaders.
In 2018, we developed a plan to support this strategy. Through much prayer, we determined that God desired us to grow from just being a resource center providing content and hosting events to developing a network of unconventional business leaders who have the opportunity to engage in smaller learning communities.
We rebranded to Unconventional Business Network and developed UB Roundtables for CEOs of smaller businesses and UB Women for professional women. We were amazed at the interest of so many to facilitate these small communities of like-minded leaders. What we are witnessing is a ministry in which business leaders are not only learning and modeling, but are called to teach through the Unconventional Business Network platform.
To foster this network growth, we are excited to announce we will be hosting our inaugural Unconventional Business Summit on October 24thand 25th of this year. This national event will be a hosted in Kansas City with amazing keynote speakers and practical breakout sessions to help attendees make their faith very practical in their business life. It will also be a place for leaders to move further along in their faith at work journey — be it learning, modeling or teaching. In addition, we will be providing the opportunity for attendees to experience first-hand UB Roundtables and UB Women Faithforward Conversations with the opportunity to start-up learning communities in their cities.
We believe this event will be transformational for the faith at work movement and for many leaders like you. Please take a moment and check out our Summit webpage and join us as we see God move in and through the marketplace this October 24thand 25th!
Gratefully,
Rick Boxx
