Mike Sharrow: Get Business Leaders in the Game

Published by Outreach Magazine | June 4, 2025

Mike Sharrow is CEO of C12 Business Forums, the world’s largest peer-learning organization for Christian CEOs, business owners and executives. He is a founding board member for the South Texas Alliance for Orphans and serves actively at Community Bible Church in San Antonio, Texas. Sharrow is also a main session speaker for the upcoming 2025 Amplify Conference, October 21–22 at Wheaton College.

In the following interview with Outreach, Sharrow discusses the reasons why he believes 95% of the church is sitting on the bench and how leaders can mobilize members of their churches to get in the game and be 24-7 gospel ambassadors in their workplaces.

Tell me a little bit about the mission and reach of C12 for people who aren’t familiar with the organization.

Sure, our mission is to equip Christians who are CEOs and owners to build really great businesses, but to do it for greater purpose and really help them connect and integrate their life and their identity in Christ. Right now we serve a little over 4,500 members across about seven countries, 175 cities, that are running businesses that employ about a million people and challenge them to [think about] how do they advance and live the gospel Tuesday and Thursday, just as much as Sunday or Wednesday night.

So why is it focused specifically on CEOs? Is that strategic?

Yeah, so there’s a unique opportunity and pressures that CEOs have. They have accountability and responsibility to shape literally what the culture [will] be like in that workplace. How will capital be deployed? They get to decide the brand, the position, a whole bunch of pieces. So they’re carrying all that. They have the keys. They’d have no one to blame but themselves [if it didn’t work out]. But they also are typically victims of the sacred-secular divide and dualism. Eighty-five percent of the Christian CEOs we talk to in America really don’t know how to connect their Sunday to their Monday. They’re trying to do a moral ethic of “do no harm,” but they’re living in a kind of suspended animation, not knowing what do I do on Tuesday besides trying to make some more money so I can give some more money away.

We think we can uniquely help address that isolation, loneliness and the kind of schizophrenic fragmentation of practical theology, and also help them deal with business issues in a way that honors God.

Tell me a little bit about your journey. You started in Alaska, moved from Alaska to the [contiguous] states, got theological training, and then moved into the business side of things. That’s an interesting trajectory that you don’t see too often.

I like to say I identify as an Alaskan immigrant living in Texas. I grew up in Alaska at a young age, fell in love with Jesus, knew I wanted to be all about his kingdom. I was like the Doogie Howser of Jesus stuff. I was on a church-planting committee when I was 12, leading the adult evangelism program when I was 16, got licensed as a Southern Baptist pastor when I was 17.

I was doing all kinds of work, leading gospel city movements, city-church collaborations in my community. I [went] to Trinity in Chicago (Deerfield) because, retrospectively, that’s where my wife was gonna go. God knew I needed her. I got a business degree, and then double-minored in [biblical] studies and philosophy and started working for a company. I found, I’m kind of good at this business stuff. This is kind of interesting. But I had a sacred-secular divide issue. I had somehow gotten through a great evangelical education and [still] believed my identity was defined by my vocation—like the logo on my shirt defined who I was. I found myself asking God, Hey, where am I gonna work in the church?

If where you are defines who you are, then maybe you don’t really understand who you are.

That’s what kind of launched me down this odyssey. I began seeing my workplace differently, myself differently. I also realized I wasn’t a very mature believer. I knew doctrine, but a nonbeliever at work one day went, “Mike, isn’t the real judge of your faith how you handle Thursday? Like, if you’re freaked out and anxious and worried that maybe God isn’t sovereign, then maybe you don’t believe those things.”

And I went, Huh. What if I’m judging my faith by my locker room conversations at church on Sunday instead of my field playtime during the week? I don’t know that I’m actually a very mature Christian if Thursday is my reflection, not Sunday.

So that took me down a path. Then I get married in Chicago and move down to Texas [to work for a] big corporation. The church I was attending is going to go multisite, so I come on staff and lead the adult ministry, discipleship ministry, and really prepare the church for multisite on the leadership side. Did that for a few years, and really developed a passion while I was in that role of going, How do I equip the former people like me to embrace their identity, their missional opportunity, and activate that?

I got involved in C12 as a member. I was a customer back in 2010 when I was executive pastor of that church. I also was running a healthcare company at the same time. I joined a group just to help me integrate, be smart, grow things, navigate problems, and then became a full-time leader locally before getting to lead the thing globally.

At the end of the day, I exist to be a catalyst for people to live their destiny in Christ, to build things, advance the gospel. I think business [is] an arena. It’s a dojo of discipleship, and it’s a gymnasium of faith. So, it’s helping people wrestle with actually living a Christ-centered life while having to work out their salvation in the practical context of life.

So let’s talk about that secular-sacred divide. How do you get people to start thinking of their job as a calling from God rather than just kind of a means to an end?

Yeah, I think we have a fundamental flaw in our theology when we begin to equate dignity of calling with logo, brand and context. I can’t find an example of Jesus calling part-time disciples, or saying like, some of you will be called to the ministry of reconciliation, or some of you will be ambassadors for Christ. And yet [there’s] this segmentation, differentiating the work in the institutional church as a stratification of Christians.

Even as young as our youth ministry programs, we will ask you, “Have you acknowledged a call to ministry?” The implication is if not, you’re not called to do ministry; in which case you’re kind of put on the bench. I would argue 95% of the church is on the bench, and the church institutionally is trying to vie for a little bit more of their pocketbook and a little bit more of their marginal time to really enable the professionals—versus it being [like] in Ephesians 4 an equipping [of the saints]. If you’re called to be a coach, then [the measure of] your coaching skill is really how will you get the players to play their role, and not how will the players fund the coach.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you are called. Spurgeon said every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter, so you don’t have an option to not be a missionary. The only question is are you good at it?

And [it’s] also getting out of a two-part gospel. It’s not just like sin and redemption, but there’s creation, fall, salvation, restoration of all things. Work is actually a good, not a necessary evil. And what is God’s redemptive agenda for that? Part of [eliminating the secular-sacred divide] is restoring the fact that God actually cares about what you do.

We shouldn’t be surprised that we have ethical issues and values issues and perversion in the industry if Christians aren’t believing that God actually cares about accounting, and he cares about marketing, and he cares about sales. He cares about how you do it. The way you do it actually is an act of worship. He cares about your heart motive. He cares about who you are in the process and its kingdom impact. If we can bring those things together and [say] everyone is called, the only question is whether or not you’re being faithful in it.

Frankly, it’s like the church is one giant sleeper cell that periodically worships and reviews playbooks on Sundays. How do we begin to activate them Monday through Friday to live and work that out?

How does that change the way you do your job when that starts to dawn on you as a Christian?

We [pose] the hypothetical, “Imagine if you were to show up at work, and in the parking lot as you’re about to go and open the door to the office, Jesus bumps into you and is like, ‘I thought I’d come to work today. I thought I’d just kind of like shadow you. Show me what you’re doing.’”

You’d be like, ah, like awkward. When you walk in you’d start seeing your work, [and say], “Let’s not look at that office. Let’s go over here. Let’s just stay in the conference room because my office is little messy right now.”

And if he’s like, “Hey, I’d love to go meet the billing team. How’s the accounting team doing? What’s your collections process?”

You’re like, “Ah … hmm … let’s go look over here …”

It’s like having guests show up. If we believe this, we generally come to recognize that God sees our work and isn’t just interested in our tax-deductible receipts at the end of the year, because fundamentally God is loaded and isn’t wringing his hands for another percentage of our gross income to fund his kingdom. If we believe he actually sees our daily work, then whether or not you like your job, whether or not your job seems significant or sexy to you, whether or not your job is creating income capacity to do generous giving at a level that gets you recognized, daily work would begin to matter.

Scot McKnight wrote a book called The Jesus Creed years ago, [in which] he asked the question, [what] if you were to, every moment, ask the Shema question: How do I love the Lord with my heart, my soul, my mind, my strength in this next meeting; as I meet with my accountant, my technology guy, my disgruntled customer. How do I love my neighbor as myself and love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength in this hour?

That puts you in an interesting heart posture and an interesting recognition of your own need for the gospel and the landscape of gospel engagement. It begins to add adventure, humility, disequilibrium, and frankly a bunch of questions.

When I moved to Texas I’d never lived in the Bible Belt before. From Alaska to Chicago to here [where] everyone’s a Christian … they just don’t believe in Jesus or read the Bible. They confuse being Texan and American with being a disciple of Jesus. I’d meet Christians who would identify [through] cross necklaces.

I’d say, “Hey, you look like you might be a Christian and you go to a church. So, what is different about you and your work because you’re a Christian?” and I typically get [in response], “Well, I don’t lie, I don’t steal, I don’t cheat. I try to operate with integrity.”

And I’d be like, “A Muslim would do that. A Mormon would do that. A [business management consultant and author] Jim Collins disciple would do that. What’s uniquely gospel about that?

And they’d be like, “But I run a plumbing company. I don’t know if God really cares about a plumbing company. And I do try to go to church and I try to tithe.” But it was just a moral ethic of do no harm.

So when I began to say, “I think God cares about what you do on Tuesday even if it doesn’t mean you get to write a million-dollar check on Sunday,” that is like an awakening moment.

Lonnie Gienger wrote a book [titled] Beyond Business, and he asked the question, what would change if as a pastor you viewed every high-net-worth Christian near church not as a high-net-worth donor, high-capacity volunteer, but as a multisite campus pastor of a frontier church that happens to be predominantly serving an unchurched, unreached population?

You would equip them different, challenge them different, hold them accountable different. You’d be asking them different metrics questions. You’d be talking about what happens at your [business] campus after you spend time at this [church] campus. And that’s part of what happens when you begin to eliminate the daylight between loving God, loving people and having a job—when those things begin to collide.

So how can pastors and church leaders equip the marketplace workers and leaders in their local churches when maybe they don’t understand the ins and outs of their daily work life?

I think it’s unfair for every pastor suddenly to feel the burden of how do I become the consultant and the advisor for how to go do all the trades and all the professions that exist in my church. What we’re called to do is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. So first of all, you have to recognize them as saints, not as funders of saints. Recognize that they are called to do the work of ministry, not just to come contribute to the work of ministry. Begin to actually restore that identity and the expectation of, Hey, you are called. You are not just called to hold your breath, don’t sin very much and try to make some money during the week so you can come do good work here, but how is the gospel lived out there?

At the Lausanne [gathering in South Korea], this one woman from Canada got up and she [posed] a great question: “Does the coach get on the field and go make the winning plays and go score the points? On what team in the world do players come to help their coach go make the winning moves? The best coaches in any sport are celebrated for taking a team that is otherwise unrelated, getting them to work in unity and go compete with excellence. And the world applauds them for their skill, their team building, their equipping, and how they make a team work.”

[Then] she said, “And yet it seems like in the Western church we celebrate a coach that has players that want to come listen to them, that want to come be with them, but we don’t judge it by what the players go and do. There’s how much the players like the coach. Well, there’s plenty of coaches that are likable, but most sports don’t recognize you unless you get players to play.”

I think [it’s] casting the vision that, actually, my success is what you do tomorrow. I don’t know what it’s like to be a plumber, but I know God sees your work. And if you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re called to be a 24-7 disciple, which means you’re called to make disciples. You’re called to demonstrate the rule and reign of Jesus. He has got you in that place for a purpose, and you need to bring your identity and your purpose in the kingdom there.

So, if I’m preaching through the Sermon on the Mount or I’m preaching through the Epistles, I’m asking how do you apply this truth in your work? Kings were judged in the Old Testament for not tearing down high places. What are the high places in your industry? Where do you need to be a champion of biblical justice in addressing wickedness and corruption?

You don’t have to have the plumbing playbook for the plumber. You just need to tell the plumber that Jesus is at your work, he cares about you at your work, you have a role to do there, and begin to ask them to take the lens of everything they learn on Sunday and go work that out on [Monday].

And maybe go tour some places. There’s tons of ideas I can give of how to go smell like sheep and get in the marketplace. The Old Testament characters Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were family business owners that had massive fleets and employees. And most of the heroes and heroines in the Old Testament: Esther, Daniel … these were leaders in pagan governments leading massive enterprises. Jesus did most of his teaching outside of the temple, outside of the synagogue, not on Sabbath. He did it during business hours at business places, talking to people using business examples, and challenged them to go do something with it during the day. So I think it’s biblically and historically normative. I think we’re having a renaissance of an original missiology.

How do you think through evangelism in a secular workplace?

I do a lot of work on this from the legality and the practical side, and there’s lots of things to think about there, but the world is not against proselytization. They’re against oppression. They’re against judgment.

We are selling ideas and ideology all day long, so I think it’s a bifurcation to suggest that I’m going to go and talk about my sports team, I’m gonna talk about my TV show preferences and everything else except the biggest part of who I am.

When I was being formed in my own journey in my career, a mentor came to me and he said, “Hey, you’re overcomplicating things, Mike. You’re trying to figure out how to be someone at work and periodically karate chop someone with the gospel, like insert a Jesus tract here, and how do I plug-and-play a quick Romans Road conversation out of the blue? That’s just weird. That’s awkward.”

He said, “Can I challenge you to do two things? [Can I] challenge you to be so excellent at your work that as Proverbs says, you’ll serve before kings. If you are just really faithful and good and you do your work as worship unto God—do all things in the glory of God, do something that you’re so above reproach that the only thing someone could criticize is your faith—and then be so genuinely in love with Jesus that you are saturated in the gospel and you can’t not talk about him; not because you’re trying to figure out how to bring him up and insert him, but because it literally is a central idea of your day.”

In the Western context your biggest risk is that someone looks at you and thinks you’re weird. But they probably think you’re weird because you still root for the Cubs or believe in the Bears anyway. Why not let them think you’re weird because you believe in Jesus? And if you’ve been excellent and faithful and it’s consistent and authentic, [then] it’s good.

I’m encouraged. In 2023 there was a moment culturally that I still refer to as like a spiritual fracking moment. We had The Chosen series hitting. We had the Jesus Revolution movie. We had the Asbury Revival. We had a lot of things hitting the airwaves that caused a historical spike in people from unchurched IP addresses googling, Who is Jesus? Is Jesus real? What is truth? Why do I exist? Like an all-time high in the history of the internet. It’s spiked and it’s held. Now they’re not googling, Where should I go to church? They’re not googling institutional questions. But they are asking Jesus questions, and then they’re going to work. So, we have a fever pitch spiritual curiosity and ignorance in the workplace. There’s actually tremendous liberty to engage that.

But dogmatism, hyper-programming … it can’t just be a little periodic karate move. It’s gotta be an integrated proposition. I think it goes back to forming disciples who believe that they are just as much a disciple, an ambassador for Christ and a minister of the gospel Thursday at 2 o’clock in the afternoon as they are Wednesday night at 7 p.m. And if they can be, and that’s consistent, that’ll bring a humility and a 24-7 dimension which allows a relational evangelism versus a programmatic one.

What’s great about the workplace is I don’t have to, in five minutes, lead Romans Road, get you to say a prayer and be done. I can ask a question, have a conversation, have you even react and say, “Let’s talk about it again next week. Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” and I get to have a relational conversation that is authentic, which is the advantage.

Seventy percent of people in the workplace are not associated with the local church in any way. So, for many business leaders we actually will quantify this: The typical small business owner is impacting about 7,000 people a year through their business—70% of those being unchurched—which means the typical small business has a megachurch of lost people, disproportionate to 99% of actual institutional churches, if they are just activated to know how to steward that platform.

I used to spend a lot of time helping churches think through how do you get your city to come to church. How do you reach an unchurched city? But what if the issue is not how to get the whole city to come to your church, but to get the whole church to actually show up in the city tomorrow, truly living the gospel. Proselytizing and evangelism is not an evil, but it also cannot be an exception. If that person isn’t otherwise viewing themselves as a disciple—except for when they evangelize or invite to church—then that’s gonna be weird. And we don’t need more people who are odd for God or doing sloppy agape. We need people who are fully integrated disciples.

Just to share the hope of this, I was down in Florida in January. The first member who ever joined C12 32 years ago, they’re on their fourth generation CEO who’s in C12. They’re a real estate company. They run RV parks around the state of Florida—couple hundred employees. In the last 30 years, they’ve had 700 people come to Christ in their business, and they’ve given over $25 million toward missions. They’ve planted 600 churches in the Caribbean, Dominican Republic and Central America. They are ridiculous.

So we go there [for] their 50th-anniversary celebration, [and] their law firm gets up and says in tears, “Watching you guys actually apply God’s Word when you were being sued for that injury and for that real estate deal made us actually begin reading the Bible in our law firm. It has changed our law firm. We now [say to] ourselves, ‘We said we believe the Bible, but do we apply it in our practice?’”

The landscape company said, “A third of my employees have come to Christ by dealing with your employees at your properties.” And it was something like, “Your business has changed the destiny of our people.”

It was just like testimony after testimony. This is a real estate company in Sarasota, Florida. The church that CEO goes to should be celebrating that as a success of the church’s mission.

Here in San Antonio, I have a CEO who had never led someone to Christ in his life, was an elder at his church, was a billboard for his church, invited everyone to every retreat, conference, VBS, Christmas program. We challenged him that the Great Commission doesn’t say go therefore and invite everybody to your church; it says go therefore and make disciples. Why aren’t you doing that at your company? Over the next year he “accidentally” led 37 people to Christ and created a program where 150 people were having weekly Bible studies in all three of the shifts in a 24-7 warehouse operation. And his pastor went, “But none of those employees are coming to our church, and it’s distracting you from the work you’re doing here. You’re getting more and more sucked into what you’re doing there.”

And he went, “If I went to Mexico and I led 20 kids to Christ, you’d put me up on stage and we’d have a mission moment. I led 37 people to Christ there and got 150 people into workplace Bible studies and it’s a distraction.”

Why would you not be like, Our church is succeeding. We’re winning. We’re making disciples in warehouses on the south side of the city. Let that be part of your mission map. Celebrate that.

For more from leaders like Mike Sharrow who are helping churches mobilize everyday Christians to reach their communities with the gospel, register your team now for this year’s Amplify Conference and take advantage of super early bird pricing.