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Eden Chen thinks Christians should take more risks. After navigating his own vocational journey, from processing a call to the pastorate to now launching multiple ventures in the LA-area, he’s determined to help Christians find solace in the sovereignty of God. In this episode of the CFWLA Podcast, Chen shares a bit of his own story, makes a plea for Christians to lean into the messiness of risk, and speaks to what he’s learned about faith in his work as an entrepreneur.
Eden Chen is founder of Fishermen Labs and Common Foods, and investor at CE Capital and CE Foundation. He has been featured on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list and resides in Los Angeles.
QUOTABLE
On Living Distinctly in the Workplace: (25:18-26:12)
“If you just do good work and you’re successful then you’re still no different than everyone else. Everyone wants to do good work and be successful. So you have the protestant work ethic, but there’s still no distinctive. Some of the guys that are non-Christian entrepreneurs that I work with work more excellently than Christians, and it would be a sin for Christians to work that hard. There’s a level of limits where Christians cannot get to that level of work ethic. So you’re not going to win people to Christ by just being excellent. Because someone will always be more excellent than you.”
On Handling Success and Failure as an Entrepreneur: (37:13-37:49)
“Especially when you find success, that’s when it’s really dangerous. Because then you're like, ‘Look at what I’ve built, and look at what I’ve done.’ If you’re an entrepreneur and you fail, then you probably have to go to the Lord. But if you’re successful, you don’t go to the Lord unless you are very intentional.”
On Risk Taking and the Parable of the Talents: (39:30-40:10)
“For the people that have more abilities, there’s more that’s required of them. With blessing comes responsibility. But it’s the opposite that I typically see.”
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcription for the Faith + Work LA Podcast is done by AI software, which will occasionally include typos and other misspellings.
Eden Chen
If I say especially when you find success, that's when it's really dangerous. Because then you're like, look at what I've built. Look at what I've done. And that's so if you I mean if you're doing you fail, that's probably you probably have to go to the Lord to your success. Well, then, you know, go, Lord, unless you are, are very intentional.
Gage Arnold
Hello and welcome to the faith and work la podcast, a narrative effort from the Center for Faith and Work Los Angeles, that aims to lift up stories of everyday Christians impacting Los Angeles through their daily work. My name is Gage Arnold, and I'll be your host and this episode will We hear from Eden Chen. Eden is the founder of Fisherman Labs and Common Foods as well as an investor at Sea Capital and Sea Foundation. And he's been featured on Forbes 30 under 30 list and is a Los Angeles resident. And the Eden thinks Christians should take more risks. After navigating his own vocational journey from preset processing a call the pastor it's now launching multiple ventures in the LA area. He's determined to help Christians find solace in the sovereignty of God. So in this episode of the faith and work la podcast, Eden shares a bit of his own story. He makes a plea for Christians to lean into the messiness of risk and he speaks to what he's learned about faith in his work as an entrepreneur. We're honored to have Eden joining us and we hope you enjoy the conversation. All right, Eden thanks so much for joining us on the CFWLA podcast. We're glad to have you.
Eden Chen
Thanks for having me. Of course.
Gage Arnold
We'll just as we get started, I've given just a bit of the intro of your background. But I would love it if you could give us just a short snippet. Just your sort of professional journey, what's your career looked like? And what do you do now?
Eden Chen
Yeah, so a little bit of a renaissance man and in a sense, at least, in the sense that I came from wanting to be a youth pastor in college and studying kind of theology and stuff like that, too and to getting a business degree and then being in finance and that whole world for a few years to Being in technology for kind of last six, seven years, too. And now being involved in kind of CPG slash food and that kind of stuff. So it's kind of been a little bit all over the place in terms of like the focus but now today I'm currently running a product development company called fishermen labs we sort of build digital products for brands and startups and help them think through what they should be building and then we actually help them engineer and design those things. For typically for a web app, and VR and AR products, and, and then I run an instant noodle company called common foods that makes kind of spinach ramen that's kind of a little bit healthier and you feel better about that. That's been going on for about six months and then started a nonprofit recently called next level, spelled NXT LBL that it's kind of focused on getting inner-city under-resourced High School and post High School into marketing and social media jobs. And the thesis there is that kids in inner cities and under-resourced areas, they are heavy users of social media and they also have their, you know, very exposed to marketing, media, sports, a lot of the kind of foundational backgrounds that are required for being a good marketer. So, anyway, but But, again, there is not a lot of programs that are focused on the marketing side So, so it's kind of all over the place. Card hard to answer your question.
Gage Arnold
Yeah. Yeah, no, I think, at least with common foods, and with the next level, there's I don't even know if those were publicly announced. But like this past April, whenever you and I met at our conference, I don't think they were. Yeah, they weren't announced at that point, but they are now. Yeah, but yeah, you move quickly, my friends. I'm impressed.
Eden Chen
Yeah, well, I just like learning and a lot of the stuff I do doesn't end up working. But at least I learned something.
Gage Arnold
Yeah. There's something to be said for that. And we'll circle back around to kind of vocationally how, yeah, sort of what drives you and what sort of keeps moving you forward but I would love to sort of even jump back further to your faith journey. Yeah, sort of take me through What does it look like for you to follow Jesus? And, uh, you mentioned that you had sort of we're on a trajectory to be a youth pastor, and was taking theology classes. Yeah. What does faith look like in your life? And how has that kind of worked itself out for you?
Eden Chen
So are you asking how I became a Christian or how I arrived at doing business from ministry? Yeah.
Gage Arnold
Maybe touch on a little bit of both, even if you don't have to give your full testimony, per se, but even just getting just a little bit of what kind of home you grew up in, sort of spiritually, just what was the climate for you? And then maybe that can be the impetus for how has that shaped the way that you view business and work?
Eden Chen
Yeah, so I guess my parents are Christian, but in a very, I guess, probably innovative unique and non-traditional sense and that we grew up on a church for a little bit, and then we kind of stopped. And my parents were, I'd say, like, to put another put it another way, but kind of more worldly than most Christians, and not worldly in the sense of like, materialistically worldly but worldly in the sense that they were. And I hate to stereotype Christians, but generally, Christians are, are sort of, not aware of the news, not aware of global, you know, things that are going on in the world who worldly. And my parents are not a bit not very aware of the arts and things like that. And I grew up my mom was a journalist and my dad was a musician. So I grew up around a lot of news and music and art and my parents are just very Free in the sense that they, they didn't really force us any which way they kind of let us find our own way. So that was the climate of a little bit of how I grew up. And yeah, from there I will be, I didn't become a Christian till I was maybe like 1617 that in that those ages and my brother became a Christian much later. But both of us were kind of kids that were that that churches really didn't want to have anything to do with. We were involved in all sorts of stuff from, you know, pranks and stealing, and you know, alcohol, drugs, all that kind of stuff. So that was sort of a little bit of how I grew up. I did like my parents did pray with us every night. I did have a sense of God. At the same time. It was certainly going to church and doing a lot of that stuff. So I did become Christian like 1617 I immediately kind of wanted to be a youth pastor, because that was the place that I got saved. And, and so yeah, that's sort of a little bit of the climate.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, yeah. We'll do you know, when you're sort of viewpoint of saying, well, I, my life has been changed by this youth pastor. The obvious next step is for me vocationally to step into doing this into working in ministry. Was there a turning point? Was it college? Like what was the point where you began to think differently and began to switch towards thinking maybe about business or something outside of ministry, per se?
Eden Chen
Yeah, the business stuff was kind of unintentional. I was a business major. In college, because business was the only undergrad major that I could pick that, you know, you couldn't really be a theology major and I went to a, just like a regular. I went to Emory University, which is like a normal school that is not a Christian school. In other words, yeah. And so they didn't have, you know, theology major, they had a religion major, but you would be studying, you know, Buddhism and everything else. So I figured this was the most practical. It was the most practical major for like maybe church planting and things like that. Mm-hmm. So that's why I was a business major, but it was it wasn't so that I, I didn't really think of going into business necessarily. And then I think there were like practical issues that I had in terms of I am in a ton of debt, and Because of school, and I likely won't make much money as as a pastor. So I just practically have to do something. Because back then when I was going to school Emory was 40,000 a year. And now it's I mean, I think now it's like 70 or 80,000 a year. It's a lot more now than it was that but it's just you know, you graduate with $200,000 a dad and, and a lot of and you don't have an income and then I had to go and do a master's program as well for I wanted to do like a masters of divinity or something I just saw just the other kind of no pathway to actually become a pastor. When you when you're coming from that background, so that was like originally, like, I have to work for a little bit, or, I mean, I literally thought I could work as a side hustle or I could marry someone that has money. That was literally only two options I had so So I wasn't dating anyone at the time. So that wasn't an option for slim. So I started, you know, looking for a summer internship and trying to do stuff on the side. And because I was taking finance classes, I was trading a little bit and just learning more about the space. And I'd done a little bit of computer programming when I was in high school, mainly just to steal and hack into things and stuff like that. Not anything like anything official or whatever. So that was, yeah, it was. It was a gradual process. But when I looking back at the arc of my life, there were many many times that I, I really tried to push myself into ministry, and God really kept redirecting me over and over and over again back into work into workplace kind of stuff and I and just becoming more and more comfortable over time. With my role as a sort of like a bridge is how I think of it between I'm in the really involved in my church really involved with the Christian community, but also really love engaging with culture and also seeing the way that I grew up to and the way my parents raised me, but unique in the, in that in that I could speak the language of culture. And I think and also just like, really wanting to be the bridge between pushing Christians to learn the language of culture and the and just what's going on in the world and those kinds of things. So a lot of my background just lends itself very well, to that kind of world. Hmm.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, I think that's, that's something that everybody to some degree probably struggles within trying to discern career steps in a career path and thinking through big questions of calling What am I called to? What should I do with my life? And I think I mean, I find encouragement just in you being sensitive to the fact that like, even though you might have been like stiff neck trying to run into a ministry that God was gracious enough to be to say, No, I have something different for you Even then what you think. And he was persistent and pulling you out of your steps towards ministry back towards were, where you are now, kind of working in the business entrepreneurial world. And that can be a hard thing to walk through. But certainly, I guess when you have some perspective to look back on it, you can see, you can see God's hand and God's presence and at all, even in those who are sort of wandering in the wilderness. years and see yeah.
Eden Chen
yeah, I thought oh, yeah, I think I think for me as also a recognition to some extent that I felt really close to God when I was doing ministry. Whether it be pulling up on this guy, you know what we're doing? Right? relevant? Yeah. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think my relationship we got recognized that my relationship with God was the closest when I was doing ministry, whether that be missions or tests, or like speaking and things like that. Yeah. And a lot of it is that, you know, a lot of it, a lot of me wanting to be in ministry was just to be close to the Lord. And not so much because it was a calling, but mainly and I find I sometimes see that other people could be something that's not gifting for work calling but because, in some ways, it's easier to be a Christian in a ministry setting. There's less monotony Selling, you know, it's hard to just kind of show up and work every day. And you don't have that spirit. Yeah, focus. Maybe it's just because it's not part of your job. And so in some ways, it's kind of sometimes you chase that feeling. And it's not a necessity necessarily that you're pursuing God's calling or anything like that. So I get to speak for myself for that, but not for other people.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, no, I totally get it. I would love to hear how So how have you made sense of the way that your faith is to overlap with the work that you do? So kind of a lot of what we do to see if W LA is helping people think through and discern sort of just vocationally disciple people to see how their work fits into God's unfolding story. How have you made sense of that in your own life and in your own work, specifically?
Eden Chen
Yeah, I think I think just reflecting on, on some of that, I think there's a level of corporate, there's a corporate side to it, which is more, how does your maybe your business or the outcome of your business have some type of ministry component or some type of faith component? And then there's a, I think, a personal component of how has, how do you personally interact with work and faith? And I think I think from a more like a corporate setting, I think it's less interesting for people to think about that. Because I think it's not I don't know if it's it's a calling for everyone to be in a place that doing any type of phase or ministry type of work from a company standpoint. I think you can be, but I think probably the majority of people work in settings where? or working on tax, or Yeah, you know, spreadsheets. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. finance or consulting or whatever it is. So and so I don't think even for us, I think there were there were many times where we tried to infuse space into the corporate work, but we make tech products and advertising products for our companies. And it's not always a great use case for like when, you know, like if there's a, maybe if there's a movie that we disagree with terms of like, it's, it's a movie that's really, really against the way that we, you know, what we think is good in the world, then we might, you know, reject it. There's nothing like that. But even that is it would be it would have to be something that was really bad. That then almost would make multiple employees feel uncomfortable. It wouldn't be, you know, because every movie every, every secular product could have things that you disagree with. So so I think that's a corporate question. I think, again that I think that's a little less interesting. The personal side has been, for me, more of the focus may be and, and I found it easier, to sort of engaging with that. And a lot of that is just around like, a few questions I would be interested in. One would be like, how does your daily living cause people to think about God or Jesus? And I guess why would anyone ask you about your face And so that's been an I think a lot of that has to do with making decisions that are that that that people I guess that people question why you would make the decisions those ways. So that it's decision making. And so I think like for us, you know, we were making a lot of money and doing pretty well in business. But we chose to live and South LA which is a low-income neighborhood. We, we always tried to sort of think about how we could try and run away from the easiest things to do, which would be when you're doing well, spent more money on yourself. You know, live more comfortably, protect yourself, put up barriers, those kinds of things. And for us thinking through like, now that we've been there's actually actually an even greater responsibility as people who have resources to do more when the reality is people do less when they have more resources. Like for example, I, my wife, and I are just finished up our foster classes. And I, and again, this is part of this is, you know, somewhat stereotyping, but in our classes with our foster, we were, you know, multiple foster classes with different sets of people that were looking to foster. There were rarely ever people that were, what I would think would be high income or wealthy that we're looking to foster, where it's like, it's actually if you're wealthy, you should have the means to do things like that. But, but the people that do it the least are people that are generally wealthy. So that's and it's, that's, that would be to be pretty universal in almost any risk-taking gain or anything that would cause any level of discomfort you, you will rarely ever see people that have made money involved in so that I think that's which is basically like no different than any that than anything that would happen in the world. Yeah and in the world die so, so no one's gonna ask a rich Christian that doesn't live any differently than anybody else outside of the fact that they protect they're protectionist and you know trying to block any type of negative kind of influence on their lives which even again creates even more separation. So I think those are the questions is more like personally, okay, I've I'm successful in business and in some ways. Now, what do I do? Like what does that look like and we're still we wrestle with that all the time? So there's, you know, our speaking retreat next week, and talking about risk, and there's been a lot of times it gave up our call to risk as Christians and even just studying risk-taking in Scripture has made me really be like, and in a lot of ways, I'm not, I'm really just not taking any risk for God. Really realistically. And, and, and, and how do I have faith in the Lord? that's just that's more of a personal like, how do I actually rely on Jesus when I don't need him for anything? And how to and why would people look to me and ask questions when I live to similarly the rest of the world. And so, you know, I don't think I think a lot of times people ask the question of like, Like, oh, what kind of job should I get? Or maybe I should go work in a nonprofit administrator, or, or I don't like accounting or whatever it is, because it's super boring, or I can't see the connection between my faith and my work. But I think so much of it is just like, are you faithfully serving in your church? Are you basically living in unique ways that where your co-workers and other people are asking questions? Are you making decisions that, like, if you look at the early church with an ax, I mean, a lot of times they people were just they literally just spent time loving on each other? It wasn't. They weren't asking so many questions about evangelism, maybe that we are, but their love was so radical for each other, that people were very attracted by that model. So yeah, it was just random thoughts here and there.
Gage Arnold
Yeah. Yeah. Even as you were sharing that or something that came to mind was a quote from the Madeline L’Engle. I don't know if you're familiar with it at all.
Eden Chen
Oh, yeah. Oh, I know her. Was she the one that wrote wrinkle time, right?
Gage Arnold
Yes, yes. Correct. She, there's a line that I've often gone back to which I think captures exactly what you're describing. And it's, it's this, I think she's, it's, I'm paraphrasing, but it's like we, we draw people to Christ, not by sort of loudly, screaming and yelling, and telling them how wrong they are. But instead by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want to know with all their hearts, the source of where it came from. Right. I find that such a just, like, if you were just a boil-down, like what you just said, it's living distinctly, like living in such a way that people actually ask questions. Having your sort of worldview be so infused with the ideals and the sort of character traits of Christ, that you don't have any hurts a Jesus fish or john three 16 on the front of your business, but you just, you serve good coffee or you do good work. you operate with integrity as a business. You deliver on deadlines, you provide an outlet for people to do good work, which is what they were made for. And I think some of those things often get brushed into the camp of like, Oh, those are just like secular unimportant things to the church when in reality that's part of being human is working. And so even something as seemingly simple as providing a job for somebody, or just doing your job faithfully is really I mean, if you really start extrapolating it out, that's a way to love your neighbor as yourself. It's a way to write live out that commandment and I think that oftentimes kind of gets missed, sadly. Yeah,
Eden Chen
yeah. And I think I think some sometimes people talk about like being excellent as a means for ministry, I think you certainly can't be excellent. Because if you're, if you do bad work and you're lazy, you know, people are not definitely not going to even want to associate themselves with you. But I think for Christian Christians, it goes much, much further than that. If you just do good work and you're successful, then you're still no different than everyone else, because everyone's incentivized to do good work and the successful. I see, you know, you have like, a Protestant work ethic, like let's, let's crush it, but then there's no distinctive, there's still no distinctive. I mean, you can only outwork to some extent. I mean, honestly, like some of the guys that are entrepreneurs that are not Christians are some of the most hard-working motivated people. And it would be a sin. for Christians to work that hard. There's a level of like limits where Christians literally cannot even get to that level of work ethic. So you're not gonna win people to Christ by just being excellent, you know, because someone will always be more excellent than you. You certainly will lose people if you're not excellent. Yeah, so I'm not saying don't be excellent. I'm just saying that at some level, there needs to be true distinctiveness outside of just excellence? And those are those really come down to typically like, one is decision making and two is your, your attitude in the way that you conduct yourself. I think those are the two things that I think about the most, I mean, even like, there's a service opportunity that came up for a restaurant that came up to purchase recently, and I'm kind of going through this process right now. But if I did purchase this restaurant, you know, I was thinking like, Who would I hire? I think like, generally With Christians, this is a reason why I would be interested in hiring Christians. And I think the reason why like something like chick fil a has been so successful, especially in the service industry is that when you hire a Christian that works in food service, I mean if they're a real Christian, they're beholden not just to clock in and clock out. But they're beholden to another standard, which is like, hey, if your boss is not there, you still want to treat people with love, because you have an opportunity to do ministry through that. And people like coming back to this data center. They're treated with respect and love, not to say that non-Christians don't do that. Well, and since a lot of cases veteran, but very distinctively the kindness and love that's shown that's out that's kind of above and beyond and having an accountability mechanism that's outside of just the rules and the values of the organization, I think it is something that's interesting and probably something that's helped, I'm sure chick fil a I mean they have such a unique culture. Partly because of their Christian distinctiveness.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, no, I think I tend to agree completely. I think it's a great point that it does have to go beyond just sort of, yeah. Working excellently or sort of bootstrapping your way through life that Yeah, there do as much as there has to be as much as excellence does when people It can't be the only distinctive and there are certain limits and things like Sabbath rest that have to be incorporated that. Yeah, you may, you may not be the most productive worker in the office, there may be limits that you have to put on what you're doing. But also that means that you redeem the time whenever you are clocking in and learning how to write Yeah.
Eden Chen
Well, and even like something like a church, I think like David Platt has done a great job of moving up against the suburban church culture, or mega-church, megachurch culture. Like you can, you can be very, very excellent, and being organizationally sound to the church and having a super nice building and having like a really strong music and worship team and those are all good things to some extent. But what's distinctive about that and in any other I guess like non-Christian organization if it's just that again if you don't go further as a church Then what is it that really draws people on? Is there actually a certain price? That's they're not just wow, this is a great service or a great kids ministry or whatever.
Gage Arnold
Yeah. And that that it certainly gets your motivations to what's actually driving you in this is it I want my boss to see me so I'll get noticed and get a promotion or I want everybody to be impressed at how awesome I am. I mean, it is a veinous second sound that's certainly a motivator. For a lot of us to some degree, or is it No, I, I've already been accepted. I've already been loved by My maker. He's already given me the blessing upfront, I work out of that blessing. and work hard because of that, but I don't work hard. I can just yeah, you live to a different standard. So, yeah, I think those are all. They're all great thoughts. I want to pivot real quick. Tell me so in terms of thinking about kind of just as a broad sort of swath like entrepreneurialism, what are what do you what would you say are the sort of what are things that are good right and beautiful about entrepreneurialism? And then what and then you can pair that with? What are some things that are broken and what are some ways that you kind of experience sort of the thistles and thorns of work specifically in And sort of that realm?
Eden Chen
Yeah, I think Yeah, I guess I can start with the benefits, I think entrepreneurship I think is it's hardly great because you have your kind of control over the values of the organization. And, and so you're not necessarily going to work in a place where you're, you're bumping against things, if you work anywhere else, you're going to have things that you disagree with. That's just the part of working at any organization and that's okay. In most cases, unless it becomes something that is the center of that organization. That's just part of the friction of Krishna living in this world and interacting. But as an entrepreneur, I think as a Christian entrepreneur, you have the ability to shape that a lot more than you would if you go work somewhere. I think Secondly, I think flexibility is pretty huge. I think if you want to have a family at least for me, it was always flexibility was one of my highest things that I was trying to attain were, like fine working hard. But wanting not being able to be told you can't spend time with your family during this time, or you can be at a small group by this timer, or whatever or you can't be at church during this time because of xy and z. I think it was important to me, I think that's a great thing about entrepreneurship. And I think like just entrepreneurship, you have, you're generally compensated less for more work than other people and stable industries. So there's a level of faith and risk-taking that's involved with that, which I think is cool. And there's a level of creative kind of output that I think comes out of entrepreneurship that's, that's unique to going as being a small cog in a huge organization, you really get to think through like, what do I want to create impact culture? Those kinds of questions. So I think that those are the pros. I think the cons are, I think there's tons of idolatry or entrepreneurship today. And I think it's easy to get sucked up in that. That, that idolatry of work just being so central to people's lives, especially in this kind of a role where, you know, you're you, you just kind of at all costs need to succeed. And I think there's a level of I think discipline and, and maturity that comes from working for someone else. That I think that I Sometimes lack, because I didn't spend a lot of time working for other people. I spent two years working in investment banking, working for other people, and then all the rest of the time I've been on my own. So it's been like, kind of 10 years almost. So, and I think there's a level of like immaturity that comes with me, being able to so closely control everything. As opposed to me coming under someone who can tell me what to do. I think there's a level of like, that actually, like, some level of goodness, I think, to learning how to be submissive. And, and so I think that there's that flip-side of flexibility, which is to say, like you You're so in control, that you don't learn how to be submissive and you don't learn and, and, and that's a very cultural thing too, as well in our Kind of millennial culture right now is just individuals is idolized along with entrepreneurship, a lot of those things go hand in hand. So being not being sucked up into the God kind of thing is, I think can be a challenge and it requires a lot of self-reflection, I think.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, sounds like you would almost need spokes on your wheel to support you and to keep you honest and hold you accountable as opportunities present themselves to consider those pros like creating a culture that enhances the common good and makes life better for your neighbor. You know, certainly, those are as good right things but it also comes with like, you can fall in the ditch of egocentrism and pride and even narcissism if its really like goes way off the tracks.
Eden Chen
And um, yeah, I think, I think pastors Yeah, just the same thing. Sure. Yeah, exactly. I think they create. Yeah. When you're the face of a thing.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, I've often I've, I've seen it even happened to folks who are at least just sort of these tendencies have shown themselves in people that I would not have expected that from. And so in some ways, it's like the, I don't think they entered into the past or they entered into entrepreneurial type ventures or roles as sort of flaming ego centrists. And then yet, yeah, part of is just the demands of where the culture is at and where work is at. It's like in an attempt to be relevant or in an attempt to, I don't know, exegete the culture, I don't know, whatever you whatever phrase you want to use. You kind of get swept up in it and become the thing that you're trying to avoid. Just kind of scary.
Eden Chen
Yeah, yeah. I'd say if you're not extremely intentional about running against that. You will become that in my mind. Like there's not an if that's the norm. It's not. It's not like, oh, some people become egocentric. I mean, I'm for sure. in that boat where if I say, especially when you find success, that's when it's really dangerous. Because then you're like, look at what I've built. Look at what I've done. And that's so so if you I mean, if you're an entrepreneur and you fail, that's probably you probably have to go to the Lord or you're successful, then you don't go to the Lord and most noon unless you are, are very intentional. I mean, that's again why I think we see so few Christians at the at high levels of sort of executive leaders. I think you I think there are Christians that go there, but they're lost. And then no one and also no one's telling you, you're, no one's telling you what's wrong with you. And you're at that level two is very few people that are going to speak to, you know, people that at that kind of success level with true accountability and true honesty, so then they're lacking accountability and a lot of issues there. I think, especially when you're if you're successful here, as a Christian, you really need to wake up with fear.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, so it's funny one of them, we had some lectures on preaching just a few weeks back at the seminary that I attend, and one of the geysers delivering them noted. He was recalling what he had heard and whenever he was a student receiving the same like lectures back in the 90s, early 2000s. And he said some of you are very gifted at Communication preaching and pastoral ministry. And may God have mercy on your soul because of that. And it was a huge eye-opener of like, Oh my gosh, like, it is both a gift and something to be stewarded with absolute care.
Eden Chen
Yeah, otherwise, I mean, you see it all. You see it all over and pastoral ministry to just the number of moral power abuses and all that. Yeah. It's not surprising at all really. But it's just you know, it's especially for them and me just, it I cower at the wrath of God when it comes to stuff like bagger they're really held at a higher standard. And so and so am I and others that have more resources. The guy at the parable, the talents is so yeah, so fitting I mean, like the people that have more abilities. There's more that's required from them. So yeah, you really, with blessing come? Yeah, sort of duality as well. So yeah, absolutely. Which is, again, like I said before, it's the opposite is what I typically see. Yeah.
Gage Arnold
Tell me a little more about it. I know you mentioned this at our conference. And I know this is something that you're pretty passionate about. But in terms of risk-taking, I think it's pretty evident that Christians aren't always surprisingly so aren't very good risk-takers. They often tend to play it safe and add their own comfort. You kind of unpacked a little bit of that on the front end. But yeah, tell me sort of what's your What are your thoughts on why Christians should take risks? how that might play out? vocationally. I would just love to pick your brain on that.
Eden Chen
Yeah, I mean, like the theologically I would say there's I mean, there's just so much stuff out there on risk from having Jesus talking about risk with, you know, parable, the talents, and Amanda found the treasure and sold everything and, and, and talking to his disciples about not burying the father's and leaving with just you know, just to sand the holes in your spirits tunic or whatever. And there's I mean, there are so many theological examples. I mean, Paul over and over again, talks about the risk and also you know, with and also shows the risk that he's willing to take through as well whether it be like you know, the early church and acts telling him don't go to the cities. He's just going doesn't matter if he's gonna die and is ready to he's ready to die. And then you have the many, many examples of people all throughout Scripture who took the risk, I mean, almost anybody that we would deem as you No to be looked up to or in that Hebrews Hall faith. All those guys were taking risks. I mean, it's one of the things I'm looking at for this retreat this weekend, are people that took a risk, and the scriptures, and what happened with them and people that didn't take risks and scriptures and what happened with that. And so some of the people that I'm looking at, like people that didn't take risk would be like in numbers 13 and 14, you have Israelites who kind of at the edge of the Promised Land and send the spies in and, and they get scared because of even though God told him that this land is yours because the people were big in the land, and the fortresses were strong, and the walls are high, and all that and you have Moses struck the rock and, and he gets, he loses access to the promised land because he, he, he did not trust the Lord. And so that says about this and get Peter denying Jesus because he was afraid of the risk of saying that he was associated with that person. And I mean, the overall over again. You see, the people that fell short and then over again. You see, Daniel, you know, Dan and some of these people, they took risks and then they didn't take risks. Yeah, you know, Peter ultimately sacrifice his life for the gospel. But he also one of his big failures was a lack of risk-taking, and even saying, like, I'm associated with this person. But you have Daniel, you have Esther, your job and Alisha, you know, just over and over Paul, he was everyone that these guys were taking crazy amounts of risk. And to an extent that we would really have a hard time even looking at that and saying maybe there's some parallel that we should be drawn with ourselves. I think that's sort of like a biblical call. And you know, I think like the practical call to me is that without risk, and Bill, I'm talking about biblical risk to me, which is irrational to the world. So, to be an entrepreneurial taking risk, that is a risk. And I think that's to be applauded in some ways. And it's interesting, but any non-Christian any but lots of non-Christians take entrepreneurial risks all the time, which is again what I said, getting paid less and higher chance of failure, then just going to work somewhere, a lot of people will take that because of the self-glorification around entrepreneurship, but people that are taking countercultural risks that are not around self-glorification, for example, like serving others in radical ways. Those that can't help you, whether that be in work, or whether that be in your daily drive, doesn't matter. Those are the places that I think that that really call people to Jesus and make people ask you questions about your faith. And so the practical reasons are just like if you're not taking risks, and no one's gonna ask you about Jesus not gonna have any impact in terms of like, at least like evangelism. So that's those are I don't know. I think that's, I mean, it's a much longer conversation, obviously.
Gage Arnold
Yeah, that's a big question. And yeah, I tend to Yeah, I tend to agree. And yeah, I think it's it's something that Christians have probably not done well. But there are Christians who, as you said, have modeled for us what it looks like to sort of living live faithfully and live unabashedly believing sort of just hope, and they're living it out in their day to day lives. And while certainly sort of falling into moralism and saying be like David or be like, you like all these other faithful people, it's probably not. It's not. It's not going to get the results that you desire all the time, but certainly saying, you know, as we grow and look more like Jesus, hopefully, this becomes more and more of our response is that we do take risks because we trust in the sovereignty of God, that that's not just this big theological word that we use, but that we actually trust it in the way that we go about our lives. Because we know who holds our future. It's a personal God, it's not karma or fate or any of those. Yeah, anything that might be ambiguous. And so yeah, there's obviously like your and Swahili edition real quick in 10 minutes. I have one last question for you because I do want to be sensitive to your time. Tell me what so as you think about your work, and this, the idea of success, is what does success look like for you? In your work, how would you define that? You know, what poetic too long necessarily, but yeah, just sort of what's that framework look like for you? And in what you do?
Eden Chen
Yeah, I think it's, it's a little bit different for everyone. And I would say on a very, a very general note, I think it's, it's pursuing, living in your calling, pursuing your calling. And I'd say for me, specifically based on my calling, I think I alluded to it earlier, I really view my, my, my role in the church as being a bridge between culture and the world and, and sort of this Christian world. And so there are two sides to that. One is how do I draw Christians into engaging with culture? And then the second side of that is how do I draw culture for the world into an interest in Jesus? And so for me, it really successfully looks like how do I How well Am I doing those things? If you know so business, to me is really a conduit for impacting culture. And I really don't feel like I've even though financially speaking, I think I've had some success. I don't know that I've actually talked to my wife about that the other day, I don't know that I'm actually like, really felt successful when it comes to impacting culture through the work that I've done. So that's a question I'm really asking myself now is really like, what does that look like to, to for my business to impact culture? And how do I engage with business in a way that does that? Well, so I think for me that that's the measure of, you know, how I look at that, whether it be you know, culture, culture is just the things that influence us. music and entertainment and passion. Where we spend our time and money and those kinds of things so I think like, to the extent of how am I impacting those things and have I done something that's attractive to the for the world to be attractive to Jesus in some way and then for Christians to somehow want to engage more. And so yeah, I don't feel like I'm there yet, but I would view as a success for me at least.
Gage Arnold
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Eden and we hope you'll stick around with us for our upcoming reflections on faith and work. If you haven't already, please please please subscribe, download and rate the podcast wherever you download your podcasts and spread the word to others on social media. It really really really does make a difference and helps us out immensely as we spread the word about what we're doing. This podcast again is a production of the Center for faith in work Los Angeles, a gospel-centered nonprofit that's dedicated to helping Angelenos reimagine their vocation to then reshape culture in Los Angeles, and beyond. If you'd like to take the conversation further, feel free to visit our website, faithandwork la.com to find resources, videos, and blogs to help you reimagine your own work with the gospel in mind. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.