Today, I was blessed to attend the “Faith in the Marketplace” event held at Union University. My friend and brother in Christ, Dr. Santhosh Abraham, invited me to join him at his table at the event. He is a professor at Union’s McAfee School of Business. This is a unique annual event that features people from the business world who also serve the Lord through their businesses and influence. This year, the speaker was Alan Barnhart. He is President and CEO of Barnhart Crane & Rigging.
I had not heard of Mr. Barnhart util this event was announced. He has a VERY powerful testimony, rising from his smaller family business to partnering with his brother to develop an extremely successful business based out of Memphis, TN. I won’t get into his whole story but to state that this family made a decision early on in their ownership of the business to live “normal” lifestyles and give away the majority of their wealth to support Kingdom work around the world.
Today, I heard him say that they now give away more than $40,000,000 per year to ministry endeavors. One powerful statement that he made was this… “God is not impressed by commas and zeros.” I have never had the opportunity to make such impactful decisions, but it is encouraging to see that some businessmen do make them, exercising their faith in uncommon ways.
Here are some photos that I snapped today at the event:
