As some of you may know, Chloe Creative is one of many faith based businesses on the internet. When I established my company, one of the founding values has always been keeping Christ at the center of our operations. But, truly, what does this mean? In this blogpost, I wanted to take a deep dive on some of the things I’ve noticed that many faith based businesses have in common.
Some company owners choose to keep their faith (or even politics) completely outside of their business operations. I think this is totally fine if you find yourself in that scenario! It’s solely based on personal preferences and life situations.
That said, I am blessed to have been raised in a baptist household since birth. We’ve attended church on Sunday’s (and yes – there are/were weekends where we missed a service!), were involved in youth group and volunteer our time and skills back to the church. I was baptized when I was 12 but my faith really took off as I got in high school.
In this post, I wanted to share my journey of establishing a religious business and how we incorporate these ideals into our everyday operations.
What does it mean to be a religious business?
When I say we are a religious business, I don’t mean that we sell Bibles, or push the religious agenda in anyone’s faces. That’s simply not what our company stands for.
Instead, to be a religious business (from our brand values) means that we treat every individual alike and share our values when we feel comfortable to do so.
A large part of the Christian faith is sharing the gospel in order to bring more people to Jesus. At times, this can be a very fine line within business that you don’t want to cross – and we promise, we’d never cross those lines.
However, we do want every interaction with our team to be an experience of love, grace and genuine care mirrored from what we are taught about the Lord in the Bible. There are times when a project may need to be delayed or things simply aren’t working out as a business owner – instead of grasping for negativity, we strive for understanding and grace to that person. We always hope the same for us, too!
Christian companies to support
While we don’t know of all the Christian companies to support, we want to take some time to share with you a few we know of and really enjoy!
My personal favorite is Cleeerly Stated. We actually include some of her items in our client gift boxes and have received such great feedback on them. For example, I really love her personalized scripture cards and have them on display in our kitchen to swap out for specific “feelings” throughout the months/weeks. We include a version of these in our gift boxes and love it! Outside of those, I highly recommend her daily devotionals and podcast.
I adore Jenessa Wait and her products – more recently, I’ve purchased a wall canvas for our in-person office which is now on display in my husband and I’s shared office 🤪
More locally, Thanks A Latte is a coffee and gift shop based in Holly Springs, NC and it’s just the cutest place! The coffee is absolutely delicious – I get an iced sunrise latte which is caramel and vanilla. The biggest fun part of this place is that you walk in and are pleasantly suprirsed with how many other Christian businesses they support by selling their products on display.
Now that we’ve walked through a few different small faith based businesses, I want to walk with you what these companies may have in common. In turn, these are qualities and criteria that I’ve built this business off of and strive to achieve daily.
Faith based businesses are… honest and transparent
“Honesty and transparency” is something that you hear often – even in the non-Christian or religious spaces. I think all individuals appreciate others being open and honest with them (cue the Bachelor clip because they say “open and honest” every five seconds).
As a Christian, we are encouraged to be honest about our lives and transparent with our struggles in order to show the grace that’s been given by God. For example, there have been many times in business where I have struggled and considered doing something different. There have been cases where I question my value and if I’m competent enough doing so.
By being transparent with how I’m feeling, I can provide a “light” to the end of my story. Yes, I’ve felt all of those negative emotions, but by continuing forward in entrepreneurship, I’ve been able to make a lifestyle that truly makes me so happy!
And finally, in honesty, I can hold myself accountable to not take all the credit for the work that I do. Jesus will always be the reason I am able to propel forward both spiritually and within my career.
Faith based businesses are… graceful
I mentioned this a little bit above, but most faith based businesses will be 100% graceful with life situations when you need.
Without going into too many details, there have been times where some of our team members asked for time off because of personal reasons. With our current business structure, our team members handle a lot of client load – which is great! That in mind, when they go out of office, I do have to plan and make sure either myself or someone else can assist with that work load.
In these scenarios, I 100% honor and respect our team members’ wishes and will always grant them time off for as long as they need: for a personal reason, mental health reason, family reason, or life changing season – I want to give grace.
Why? Because Jesus was ever so graceful to us.
Faith based businesses are… loving and respectful
Lastly – most faith-based or Christian-based businesses will lead with love and respect. Again, I cannot speak for all businesses here, but this is a core value that we at Chloe Creative want to continually reflect.
Showing love with individuals (like clients) can mean caring for their families like you care for your own, sending birthday cards or again, providing grace when it might not be warranted.
For the respect piece, because I am younger than all of my team members and most clients, I want to showcase respect to all elders.
This means hearing them out during the feedback and/or revisions process, putting myself in their shoes and being okay with any decisions they make moving forward with regards to their business or our process.
Conclusion
Every business has their own set of core values they follow. This is a big reason why we suggest having an official branding complete because it can really allow you to open up and uncover exactly what those values are.
At Chloe Creative, we are a member of multiple faith based businesses across the internet. We hope with every client interaction we can draw someone closer to God through our behaviors or kind words.
We also recognize that not every client will share the same belief system that we do – and that’s okay. We will never press our core values into you where you’d feel misunderstood and unheard. We are just so happy you are here!
