A New Network of Faith-Based Entrepreneurs Takes Shape in Lakeland
By Adam Spafford
Regular readers of The Lakelander and members of Lakeland’s business community at large need no introduction to Chrissanne Long, whose tireless efforts to connect local entrepreneurs through Bridge Local is now in its 14th year. Yet in many ways Chrissanne’s drive to build networks of mutual support among the enterprising has only just begun.
Chrissanne Long, third from right, is a local entrepreneur who is the catalyst for bringing Faith-Driven Entrepreneur groups to our local community.
In 2019, wrestling with a sense of spiritual alienation, she sought an answer by attending Highland Park Church. “I had not been walking in my faith most of my life,” she explains. “I felt like perhaps I had sinned too much as a young person for God to pay attention to me so my relationship with Him didn’t really develop. Although there was nothing necessary going wrong in my life, there was this emptiness that I couldn’t explain.”
For a few years she was content to listen to the sermon and head home. Online sermons during COVID shutdowns made anonymous attendance—and her resistance to connection at church-—quite easy. But then in April 2022, precipitated by a serious health issue and then the passing of her devout grandmother, Chrissanne’s apprehension gave way to God’s irresistible call upon her to connect with Christian entrepreneurs for mutual encouragement in both their endeavors and their faith.
“Week after week I’d take lots of notes from the sermon and knew I had to do something. But I thought, ‘I can’t start something new.’ I searched online for Christian business mastermind-type groups, but it wasn’t until I discovered Faith Driven Entrepreneur (www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org) that I knew intuitively it was the right path,” she recalls.
The program is free, requires no license and includes a foundational curriculum with encouraging content. Almost immediately she signed up for a virtual group.
The following Sunday, Chrissanne’s urge to do something meaningful with her growing faith and discovery of Faith Driven Entrepreneur coalesced into a clear vision.
Join a Local Faith-Driven entrepreneur GROUP
The program is free, requires no license and includes a foundational curriculum with encouraging content. Almost immediately she signed up for a virtual group.
The following Sunday, Chrissanne’s urge to do something meaningful with her growing faith and discovery of Faith Driven Entrepreneur coalesced into a clear vision.
“I felt God saying to me, ‘Find six people that will create six new groups and let the members of those groups make a positive impact in Lakeland by encouraging entrepreneurs and their faith.’ So that’s what I did; I had lunches and coffees and meetings as I presented potential group facilitators with the Faith Driven Entrepreneur curriculum. And those groups just recently finished the first foundation series.”
What is the Faith-Driven Entrepreneur?
That entrepreneurs shape culture, as Faith Driven Entrepreneur asserts and evinced by the countless ways technology and availability of services influence our behavior, is all the more important when we’re reminded that entrepreneurs aren’t one-dimensional creatures. Long says, “Since becoming an entrepreneur myself, I’ve realized that they touch every aspect of the community because they’re also parents, spouses, church members, vendors for government—you name it. God views work as a good thing—and we’re not simply to be Christ-followers at church but in every aspect of our lives, which certainly includes entrepreneurial endeavors.”
The word entrepreneur might at first seem inapplicable to God, but it’s a Gallicism originally meaning one who undertakes. And Creation is by all measures quite an undertaking. So as Faith Driven Entrepreneur refers to The Almighty as the original entrepreneur, it follows that those that bear His image would reflect His character in likewise undertaking creation, too. “I’m reminded of the parable of the talents – that we’re not called to bury our talents but to bring glory to God because He chose us for the gifts He’s given us.”
And those gifts are meant not only to bless ourselves but also others. “Generosity flows from building a business with God at its center,” says Long. “And from my own experience, entrepreneurship is a pathway out of poverty—I’ve seen the rising tide lift all ships, so to speak. It allows people to work themselves into a legacy of wealth instead of poverty.”
The beauty of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur curriculum is its simple yet edifying format. Meetings open in prayer, the group watches a 15-minute video and discusses it, and then the meeting is closed in prayer. But the simplicity belies the richness of the experience. “The dialogue is always so powerful—we talk about where we all are in our businesses and faith and how they relate. God made us to labor together, to encourage one another to good things. There’s an emptiness in our professional relationships when people of faith feel like they must separate it from their work,” she says.
“I used to think a calling was only church-related, but now I see we are all called to create in whatever endeavor we pursue,” says Long.
Entrepreneurs must work unyieldingly on their businesses to succeed, of course, but the danger is that the business becomes all-consuming.
“I have a bigger vision for my life than just my businesses. When I put God at the center of my business and approach it with Biblical principles, it doesn’t make everything easy, but it does make everything align.”
Lakeland’s Faith Driven Entrepreneur Groups currently include:
Mondays @ 12pm @ PCBA
Tuesdays @ 9am @ coHATCH
Wednesdays @ 6:30pm @ Catapult
Wednesdays @ 9am @ Hello FL Real Estate
Thursdays @ 12pm @ My Office & More
Thursdays @ 6pm @ CPS Advisors
To find out more about Lakeland’s FDE Groups, visit https://lkld.co/faithdriven