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A Vision So Noble: The Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur in The War on Reality

[By Gene Blanton]

This essay is inspired by my five decades as a Marine veteran, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and advisor to CEOs. The hard-earned lessons from these experiences have compelled me to share them with practitioners and others who are charged with the enormous responsibility of providing leaders with wise counsel.

I got my invaluable leadership training while serving at a young age in the Marines. From there, a broadcast tower construction business, a high-risk endeavor requiring faith, trust and skill amongst the installation crews, kicked off my business career. After five years of moving up the ranks in two other companies in that industry, at the age of twenty-eight, I—along with my beautiful bride, Shelia —started our own company in the same industry. We started it out of our garage with $20,000, but the Lord blessed us and we did millions in revenues, with profit, the very first year and every year thereafter. Three years later, we sold our first company.

My last exit came well over thirty years later, when my Army Ranger-Brother-in-Christ-business partner, Wade Myers and I sold our nineteen-month-old fintech investment banking platform to J.P. Morgan. In the intervening years between those events, I led companies—many as interim CEOs in turnaround scenarios—in such diverse industries as global logistics, geospatial imaging, leadership development, telecommunications, marketing analytics, transportation and financial services. I’ve also had the privilege to provide hopefully wise counsel to over 200 mostly Christian entrepreneurs in their fight to create value.

The War on Reality

In October 2005, thirty years after I first stood on those yellow footprints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, I was embedded with young Marines of the 2nd Marine Division in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. As we headed outside the wire and the protection of Camp Blue Diamond to patrol the increasingly volatile city of Ramadi, I glanced over and saw a cardboard sign with a stenciled message that read, “America is not at war. The Marines are at war. America is at the mall.”

Are Christian entrepreneurs doing business as usual or are they engaging in what Dr. Frank Turek calls in his book, The War on Reality?1 This war—a war on reality itself— is the upstream conflict from which every other enduring threat derives its power. It threatens you, your family, your church, your business, your country and your very way of life.

Os Guinness assesses our current situation this way:

“The world is fast approaching the climax of one of the great turning points in history. After nearly two millennia of existence and half a millennium of unprecedented dominance, Western civilization is on the wane and the shadows it casts are lengthening. Many parts of the West are living off memories, 
 The West has lost faith and lost confidence in itself. It is no longer sure of its own identity
 Yet too many people are in denial, and too few realize either the character of the present hour or the gravity of the stakes.”2

No other calling provides greater engagement with people, exercises more sustained authority and influence on their day-to-day lives or has a greater opportunity to shape how people perceive reality in order to turn the tide in this War on Reality, than that of the Christian entrepreneur. This will require a reorientation from being “Christian” entrepreneurs to Christ-Oriented Entrepreneurs who intentionally create Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprises. These enterprises produce cultures which act as Schools of Reality: organizations that relentlessly pursue reality in the quest to become the very best at what they do. These are companies that change lives while building enduring financial and eternal value.

We must recognize “the greatest consistent damage to businesses and their owners is the result not of poor management technique but of the failure, sometimes willful, to confront reality.”3 Before gaining an understanding of the external realities we are facing in this war, the strategies being used against us, and exploring a plan for victory, we must first confront some ugly internal realities.

Double-Minded Worldviews

Although we are instructed to be “sober-minded and watchful” (1 Peter 5:8)4, few of us Christian entrepreneurs are truly engaged in this war. According to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur’s estimate, worldwide there are approximately 180 million self-identifying Christian entrepreneurs.5 That sounds like an army large enough to impact the world. Yet, according to the Barna Group, “two-thirds of all American adults (66%) claim to be Christian, but only six percent (6%) of them possess the biblical worldview. Of the 170 million adults who self-identified as Christian, ninety-two percent (92%) are Syncretists.”6

If Christian entrepreneurs have already been taken prisoner by the very worldviews they are supposedly to fight against, then numbers mean nothing. As Marine General Robert H. Borrow would say, “Success in battle is not a function of how many show up, but who they are.”7 To win, we must first and foremost become Christ-Oriented Entrepreneurs.

The Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur

Air Force Colonel John Boyd wrote, “…for success over the long haul and under the most difficult conditions
what is needed is a vision rooted in human nature so noble, so attractive that it not only attracts the uncommitted and magnifies the spirit and strength of its adherents, but also undermines the dedication and determination of any competitors or adversaries…”8

Jesus Christ is the only “vision so noble” that will sustain us over the long haul and under the most difficult circumstances. He not only attracts the uncommitted and magnifies the strength of those of us who adhere to His Word, but He also undermines the dedication and determination of our adversaries. He should be our supra or transcendent orientation and center of gravity. He should be our grand ideal, our overarching theme, our noble philosophy. Only He presents a coherent paradigm within which individuals as well as societies can shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances. Only knowledge of Him offers a way to expose the flaws of competing and adversary systems. Since leadership is “the dominating requirement for success”9, Jesus Christ must become our supra-orientation. We must become Christ-Oriented Entrepreneurs, professors and advisors.

“As Jesus’ disciple, I am his apprentice in kingdom living. I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of the Heavens as he would lead my life if He were I.”10 With this acknowledgement, Dallas Willard offers a completely different orientation on Christian discipleship. For many Christians, discipleship has been summarized with the familiar question: What would Jesus do? That is a good question because it turns our attention toward Christ before we act.

Willard, however, invites us to ask an even deeper one. How would Jesus lead my life if He were I?  It asks how Jesus would think, notice, love, value, understand reality, and ultimately live this very life of mine—with my circumstances, calling, gifts, relationships, business, etc.  The first points to action; the second to the orientation that produces action. The first asks us to picture Jesus in our circumstances. The second invites Christ Himself to reorient me with His character and His competence to address those circumstances. A Christ-oriented entrepreneur will continually observe reality, orient towards reality, make decisions based on reality, and act on reality under the lordship of Jesus Christ. A Christological Worldview constitutes a supra-orientation formed through apprenticeship to Jesus Christ—the ultimate Reality.

Why a Christological Worldview instead of a Christian Worldview? According to Francis Schaeffer, “The meaning of the word Christian has been reduced to practically nothing
. Because the word Christian as a symbol has been made to mean so little, it has come to mean everything and nothing.”11 Today, this is due, in large part, to the “Christian” syncretic, schizophrenic, double-minded worldviews held by the vast majority of Christians and to those for whom theology, doctrine, denominations, creeds, and catechisms have taken precedence over Christ Himself. Many are captured by the “I am of Paul” or “I am of Apollos” (1 Corinthians 3:1-9) mindset rather than that of “I am of Jesus.” We cannot defeat an enemy whose worldviews we embrace.

He Trains My Hands for War

David, “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:32), who performed one of the greatest turnarounds ever accomplished, delivered through his team as he “shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them” (Psalm 78:72). You may be the most wonderful, spirit-filled, truly Christ-loving entrepreneur on the planet, but if you are incompetent, your people will never be able to see the Christ in you. My experience is that most of the time a lack of competence is rooted in a lack of character and the humility required to learn.

Whatever measure of business success I have been blessed with, I owe in large part to the leadership training I received as a United States Marine. The lessons I learned there have shaped every stage of my entrepreneurial journey. From being belted off the top of 2,000-foot towers we built and serviced in my first company, to sitting in a boardroom atop J.P. Morgan’s headquarters in Manhattan to sell our 19-month-old fintech investment banking platform, I have made my living applying Marine Corps Warfighting Doctrine12 to business.

The leadership philosophy of the United States Marine Corps has been repeatedly recognized in the world of management as an effective model for organizational leadership, leadership development, frontline engagement, decision-making under uncertainty, and competitive strategy.13Ìę The Marines define the essence of war as a fundamentally interactive social process, a violent struggle between two (or more) hostile, independent and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other, abounding in friction (internal or external) in an environment of uncertainty, fluidity, disorder, and complexity.

Doesn’t that sound like just another day at the office? A day of fighting through the external friction caused by marketplace forces violently resisting our efforts to build value while simultaneously addressing the internal friction within our own organizations which hinders those same efforts to build value. According to the Marine Corps Warfighting Doctrine, fighting power is the total moral and mental capabilities of your team. Your enemy is friction – such as the market forces which try to prevent you from breaking through to deliver and build value. Internal friction is what takes place within your organization that reduces fighting power and your organization’s ability to build and deliver value. Fighting power is the ultimate measure of leadership.

Colonel John R. Boyd (USAF), one of the 20th Century’s most influential military strategists, shaped the Marine’s warfighting doctrine with his OODA (Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action) Loop (Fig. 1).14 In this conception, Orientation, being the key to this theory, is the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, cumulative experiences, and new information continually processed through analysis and synthesis. It is through Orientation that we construct our mental image of reality. Trying to change individual or organizational observations, decisions and actions without changing Orientation is futile. The Loop is in essence a generative learning system, an ongoing process of adaptation that is also known as the “Whirl of ReOrientation.”15

Figure 1

Boyd’s OODA Logo

Flowchart showing Observations, Orientation, Decision, Action—guidance for Christ-focused leaders at HCU.

Victory therefore belongs not to those who simply decide faster, but to those whose Orientation is continually refined to correspond more faithfully with reality. Fighting power is generated from successful OODA Loops oriented towards reality. Internal friction arises from confused priorities, poor communication, weak leadership, bureaucracy, distrust, and flawed decision-making, etc. High internal friction produces individually and organizationally slower, more misoriented OODA Loops that result in diminished fighting power and a reduced ability to break through external friction and accomplish the mission.

Organizations that intentionally develop their people reduce internal friction while simultaneously increasing fighting power. Character and competence build trust. Trust builds cohesion. Cohesion builds love. “The result of creating well-trained, well-led, cohesive units is—love. These Marines are ‘tight.’ They regard each other—as explained in Aristotle’s discussion of philĂ­a, love—as ‘another myself.’”16 Love is the ultimate force multiplier.

Figure 2

Jesus Christ as Supra-Orientation

Flowchart illustrating how entrepreneurs use Christ-centered values in decision-making.

In the OODA conception, maximum fighting power is sustained by “a vision so noble” and a “supra-orientation.” In the context of business as mission, it is not delivered by simply tacking Christian principles onto our business. To successfully build value, we must simultaneously grow our people as Jesus would – “If He were I.”

Know Your Enemy

The Bible warns us against the “wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11, KJV), which are the systematic methods by which reality is misrepresented – producing disorientation and ultimately destructive decisions and actions. A form of cognitive warfare (also known as 5th Generation Warfare or 5GW), where “moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived
 the enemy could be blind, unaware of the true identity of the adversary he is engaging with, or maybe oblivious to the fact he is fighting a war at all.”17 Interestingly, 5GW reminds us of the enemy’s first shot at the beginning of history: “Did God actually say
?” (Genesis 3:1)

In this War on Reality, perhaps the biggest threat to our businesses is its devastating impact on the character and competence of the workforce. The casualties of this 5GW Cognitive Warfare walk through your workplace doors daily. They arrive at their workplaces, shaped by decades of cultural formation that extends far beyond formal education. They may be highly skilled, but they often lack training in moral reasoning, or the motivation to pursue objective truth. Cultural immersion in socialism, individualism, moral relativism, and identity politics could very well have compromised their perception of freedom, justice, work, authority, and human flourishing.

As Willard observed, ours is an age marked by the “disappearance of moral knowledge,”18 where feelings increasingly replace reason; subjective experience often eclipses objective reality, and many important decisions are driven more by emotion than careful judgment. Alisa Childers summed it up well in Live Your Truth and Other Lies, “More than ever before, people are looking to their own hearts, opinions, preferences, biases, and predispositions to guide them through life. In other words, we have learned to trust our feelings.”19 Moreover, contemporary hostility toward Christianity is increasingly rooted not in debates over its truth claims but in the belief that biblical Christianity is socially harmful.20

The Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise

Willard suggests that “Now God’s own kingdom, or ‘rule’, is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done.”21 When an enterprise is led by a Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur, that business should be an extension of the Kingdom of God, where through the Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur, it is a place where what God wants done is done. This is a place where Francis Schaeffer called the “final apologetic”—agape love—reigns22. This is the defining characteristic of a Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise. It is your market differentiator, your force multiplier, your competitive advantage, and your Fighting Power.

I am not here to advocate a company culture where employees are regularly backed into a corner and taken down the Romans Road or the Four Spiritual Laws. I Peter 3:15 tells us we should always be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” I believe one of the reasons many Christians don’t want to have conversations regarding Christ is precisely because they are unprepared to give a defense.

In creating a Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise, the Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur should focus on developing a culture of learning, a culture of excellence, a culture that relentlessly pursues reality in order to build value, a culture where employees feel loved enough to “ask you for the reason for the hope that is in you.”

In the introduction to his book, Working—the result of hundreds of interviews with employees—Studs Terkel wrote, “This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body
. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us
. The scars, psychic as well as physical, brought home to the supper table and the TV set, may have touched, malignantly, the soul of our society.” He goes on to say that work is also about a search “for daily meaning as well as daily bread, 
 in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”23

This “Monday through Friday sort of dying” has a cost. According to Gallup, globally only twenty percent (20%) of employees are actively engaged and thriving at work; sixty-four percent (64%) are not. These are the clock watchers. They have already quietly quit. They put in just enough effort to avoid being fired. Sixteen percent (16%) are in the actively disengaged club. They are not only disengaged, but hostile in the process. This failure of leadership has an estimated cost of $10 trillion dollars annually.24 This cost is the product of internal friction, which reduces the fighting power of these businesses, and we as consumers get to pay for it.

For Christ-Oriented Entrepreneurs, the cost of disengagement provides them a great opportunity to become employers of choice and outperform those holding competing worldviews. For Marines, according to Marine General Charles C. Krulak, “Our Corps does two things for America: We Make Marines and We Win Our Nation’s Battles. Our ability to successfully accomplish the latter, of course, depends upon how well we do the former.”25 Interpreted for business, making your “Marines” is a function of growing and developing people, and winning battles means creating value. For the Marines, there is no false dichotomy between the two. They coinhere (that is, to inhere jointly). There is no “either/or” in a Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise; growing people and building enduring and sustainable value— financial and eternal—is “one substance.”

Gallup’s data is definitive proof that growing people coinheres with building value, for when your people suffer Terkel’s “Monday through Friday sort of dying”, value dies also. In practice, a Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise is a learning organization—a School of Reality. Since Jesus Christ is the ultimate reality, the enterprise regards the relentless pursuit of reality as essential to every act of value creation. People grow by observing, orienting towards, deciding, and acting on reality, and enterprises create value by doing the same.

This requires a different kind of leadership. According to General John A. Lejeune, “The relation between officers (leaders) and enlisted men (team members) should in no sense be that of superior and inferior nor that of master and servant, but rather that of teacher and scholar.”26 He was advocating the same model of leadership that Jesus used. Jesus invited twelve disciples (scholars) into His School of Reality. He worked beside them. He walked beside them. He worshiped beside them. He wept beside them. When necessary, He corrected them, sometimes sternly. With only one dropout, Jesus grew his people and created the greatest enterprise this world ever has or ever will see.

“Amid today’s uncertain, volatile security environment, our most effective weapon remains the individual Marine who out-learns, out-thinks, and out-fights any adversary. Such warfighting competence is secured only through intellectual development.”27 It is the same in business for you and your team. Our School of Reality should teach leadership, communications skills, people skills, problem-solving, logic, moral knowledge, the art of dialogue, personal financial management, and how business and free enterprise works. By teaching them how to navigate reality, you love your employees enough to prepare them for what is next.

Lessons in the school of reality are delivered daily, throughout the day, and in the context of the work required to build value. Learning is embedded in the culture, in every interview, in every employee evaluation, every after-action report, every meeting. More formal content can be delivered in short on-the-spot lessons. Ten minutes a day results in over forty hours a year of learning without pulling people out of the office or the field to do so. In the process they solve problems and create value, and you create a culture of excellence – where people take pride in their work and their enterprise by building value.

A Grow People ↔ Build Value Enterprise is a School of Reality enabled by the Christological worldview. Through its culture of truth, love, excellence, and value creation, the enterprise makes the Christian understanding of reality increasingly plausible to those walking wounded under our care. A truly Christ-Oriented Entrepreneur who creates such an enterprise will be doing his or her part in fighting this War on Reality, the malaise of “Monday through Friday sort of dying” and making a significant difference in the Kingdom of God where business is a divine ordinance.28

About the Author

Smiling older man with gray hair and beard in suit jacket on HCU campus, representing Christ-Oriented entrepreneurship.Gene Blanton is a Marine, a serial entrepreneur—a French word meaning “incapable of gainful employment”—venture capitalist, advisor to CEOs, speaker, and author. He is married to the love of his life, Shelia. Together they have two children and eight grandchildren. Gene and Shelia live on a ranch southwest of Dallas with two oversized hounds. They are members of Prestonwood Baptist Church.

Notes

1Frank Turek and Phoenix Hayes, The War on Reality: Recovering Truth in a World That Celebrates Lies (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2026).

2Os Guinness, Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds (Kildare, 2024), 8-9

3Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right, Kindle ed. (New York: Crown Business, 2004), 18

4Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016).

5Faith Driven Entrepreneur, Faith Driven Capacity Builders Landscape Report (Atlanta, GA: Faith Driven Entrepreneur, 2023), estimating approximately 180 million Christ-following entrepreneurs worldwide and noting that only a small fraction is currently served by Christian entrepreneur organizations; accessed July 27, 2026. https://faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/faith-driven-capacity-builders-landscape-report.

6George Barna, American Worldview Inventory 2024, Release #1: America Needs Spiritual Renewal More than a Political Majority (Glendale, AZ: Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, February 19, 2024), 4; https://web.arizonachristian.edu/CRC/2024/CRC-Release-AWVI-1-February-19-2024.pdf. Barna reports that six percent of self-identified Christians possess a biblical worldview, while ninety-two percent are classified as Syncretists.

7Robert H. Barrow, quoted in “Robert Barrow, 86; Four-Star General Led Marine Corps,” Washington Post, November 1, 2008.

8John R. Boyd, Patterns of Conflict (briefing, unpublished presentation, n.d.), slides 143–44.

9U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 6-10: Leading Marines (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, August 13, 2024), Foreword and Chap. 1.

10Dallas Willard, “How Does the Disciple Live?” Radix 34, no. 3 (Spring 2009), republished by Dallas Willard Ministries, accessed July 29, 2026, https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/how-does-the-disciple-live

11Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1970), 12.

12Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, MCDP 1: Warfighting (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, June 2024), PDF, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCDP%201%20Warfighting.pdf .

13See, for example, Jon R. Katzenbach and Jason A. Santamaria, “Firing Up the Front Line,” Harvard Business Review 77, no. 3 (May–June 1999): 107–17; Knowledge at Wharton, “Preparing for Business Battles? Learn Some Lessons from the Marines,” June 6, 2001; Rob Laymon and Kate Campbell, “Learning to Lead, Marine Style,” Wharton Magazine, Summer 2001; Eric K. Clemons and Jason A. Santamaria, “Maneuver Warfare: Can Modern Military Strategy Lead You to Victory?” Harvard Business Review 80, no. 4 (April 2002): 57–65; Knowledge at Wharton, “In Business, as in Combat, Victory Depends on a Strong, Swift Offense,” February 25, 2004; Jason A. Santamaria, Vincent Martino, and Eric K. Clemons, The Marine Corps Way: Using Maneuver Warfare to Lead a Winning Organization (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005); David H. Freedman, Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines (New York: HarperBusiness, 2000); Dan Carrison and Rod Walsh, Semper Fi: Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way (New York: AMACOM, 1998); Ken Marlin, The Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016); Ruth Waldman Schultz, “Commanding the Field,” Wharton Magazine, Summer 2011; Amy Downey, “Leading Beyond the Classroom,” Wharton Magazine, Fall/Winter 2025; “25 Years of Wharton Leadership Ventures,” Wharton Magazine, Fall/Winter 2025; Roger Trapp, “11 Reasons Why Corporate Leaders Should Follow the Marine Corps Way,” Forbes, August 30, 2016; Scott Ford, “Lessons on Leadership Skills From the Marines,” Forbes, November 29, 2021; and Henry DeVries, “Four Ways to Lead Like the U.S. Marines,” Forbes, July 6, 2018.

14Chet Richards, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2004); Gary Hamel, “Why Your HR Department Needs a Major Reboot,” Fortune, May 1, 2013; Mike Ryder and Carolyn Downs, “Rethinking Reflective Practice: John Boyd’s OODA Loop as an Alternative to Kolb,” International Journal of Management Education 20(3),  (2022): 100703; Clay Spinuzzi, Robert Cochran, and Gregory P. Pogue, “Linked but Desynched: An OODA Analysis of Associated Entrepreneurship Accelerator Programs,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 37, no. 1 (2023): 28–67; and Michael König and Luce Lukas C. Kaiser, “Applying The OODA Loop to Strategic Decision-Making in Business,” The Defence Horizon Journal, January 12, 2026. Collectively, these works apply John Boyd’s strategic theory and the OODA framework to business strategy, organizational adaptability, management education, entrepreneurship, and executive decision-making. Richards remains the seminal business treatment, while König and Kaiser extend Boyd’s orientation-centered framework into a practical management model through their OODA Canvas.

15Mark McGrath, “The Whirl of ReOrientation: OODA as Boyd Actually Meant It,” Substack, accessed July 29, 2026, https://thewhirl.substack.com; Mark McGrath and Brian “Ponch” Rivera, No Way Out podcast, YouTube and podcast platforms, accessed July 29, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/@NoWayOutPodcast. I owe a great debt to Mark McGrath and Brian “Ponch” Rivera for my understanding of John Boyd and his OODA Loop. For anyone interested in the work of John Boyd and learning Boyd’s actual interpretation of his OODA Loop, rather than the silly, cartoon version—so popular and yet so wrong—McGrath and Rivera provide the very best starting point.

16Jonathan Shay, “Appendix E: Cohesion,” in Trust Study: Final Report (Arlington, VA: CNA Corporation, 2000), Appendix E, E-1–E-57.

17Daniel H. Abbott, ed., The Handbook of 5GW: A Fifth Generation of War? (Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books LLC, 2010). All quotations regarding 5GW come from this source.

18Dallas Willard, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge (Taylor & Francis, 2018). Kindle Edition.

19Alisa Childers, Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions That Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed  (Tyndale House Publishers, 2022). Kindle Edition, 3.

20Natasha Crain, When Culture Hates You: Persevering for the Common Good as Christians in a Hostile Public Square (Harvest House Publishers, 2025). Kindle Edition.

21Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 25.

22Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian, 35.

23Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), xiii.

24Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report (Washington, DC: Gallup, 2026), accessed July 29, 2026, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx

25Charles C. Krulak, Commandant’s Planning Guidance (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1995), 3.

26John A. Lejeune, “Relations Between Officers and Men,” Marine Corps Order No. 29 (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, August 14, 1920), reprinted in Marine Corps Manual (1921).

27Michael W. Hagee, Statement Before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives Regarding the Department of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization Budget Request (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, February 12, 2004), “Education.”

28Examples of Christian-founded or Christian-led enterprises that exhibit significant elements of a Grow People–Build Value Enterprise include Movement Mortgage, ServiceMaster under C. William Pollard, Herschend Family Entertainment, Chick-fil-A, Interstate Batteries, TURBOCAM International, Herman Miller under the De Pree family, and Scheels. See Movement Mortgage, “Careers,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://movement.com/careers, and “Impact Lending,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://movement.com/about/impact-lending; C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), and Kent T. Saunders, “Honoring God in a Publicly Traded Corporation: Inspiration from ServiceMaster and the Writings of C. William Pollard,” Journal of Biblical Integration in Business 28(1) (Fall 2025): 7–18, https://cbfa-jbib.org/index.php/jbib/article/view/707; Joel Manby, Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), and Herschend, “About,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://www.hfecorp.com/about/; S. Truett Cathy, Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People (Decatur, GA: Looking Glass Books, 2002), and Chick-fil-A, “Company,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://www.chick-fil-a.com/about/company; Interstate Batteries, “Learn about Our Purpose, Values and Culture,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://www.interstatebatteries.com/about/our-culture; TURBOCAM International, “Our Mission Is Who We Are,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://www.turbocam.com/about/; Max De Pree, Leadership Is an Art (New York: Doubleday, 1989), and MillerKnoll, “Remembering Max De Pree, 1924–2017,” August 8, 2017, https://news.millerknoll.com/2017-08-08-Remembering-Max-De-Pree-1924-2017; and Scheels, “The History of SCHEELS,” accessed August 2, 2026, https://www.scheels.com/our-history, and Ashley Fetters Maloy, “How Scheels Conquered Middle America,” Washington Post, April 29, 2025.