12 Biblical Principles for SuccessDavid Green / Hobby Lobby for Christian entrepreneurs

• On major decisions, deliberately leave room for God to have a vote before you move
• Structure the step so that only a clear yes from God lets the deal happen
• Concrete method: when someone offers real estate or a similar deal, he can name a number knowing it would take a miracle if it works
• That miracle-number structure is how God gets a vote before a major move
• The goal is not to push many initiatives for activity's sake
• They do not want to just implement a lot of things
• They want to be sure that what they are doing is approved by God
• Do not confuse motion with mandate

Major moves are filtered so God's approval, not just opportunity, green-lights the step. Real-estate and big offers get structured so God can say no by the numbers failing the miracle threshold.

• David makes continual prayer a daily business habit, not a Sunday add-on
• He tries to live by two or three scriptures consistently every day
• First: pray without ceasing, because challenges arise every day in business
• Second: God will never leave you nor forsake you, so he walks aware that God is present in the decisions
• Third: you have not, because you ask not
• If he prays and asks, he is walking with God according to His will, not for his own sake
• Listening is paired with obedience
• Hearing without obeying is not the principle

Prayer and Scripture are operating tools for daily business challenges, not decoration. Asking God is treated as normal leadership practice when pressure hits.

• Hobby Lobby practices large-scale giving
• David affirms giving on the order of about 50% of profits
• Generosity rests on the revelation that the money is not theirs
• They do not work for their own selfishness
• They work and want to grow and make more profit to do more for the ministry they are involved in
• Much of that generosity went to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
• David's son Steve has taken the lead on the museum project
• They had opened about 980 stores, but a world-class museum was a huge first for them
• They felt God's Word should be exalted and needed a world-class museum
• David ties the blessing to that posture: God has blessed them because they know it is not theirs

Profit is grown to fund ministry impact, including the Museum of the Bible. Generosity is board-level practice, not a private afterthought.

• David says risk is normal
• The filter is obedience and motive, not adrenaline
• You take some risks, but do it for the right reasons
• You are not doing this for your own profit
• You do it because you want to do more in the field of service
• Risk is tied back to seeking God's will first and acting in obedience to Him
• Wrong-reason risk and right-reason risk can look similar on a spreadsheet
• Motive separates them

Expansion and big bets are framed as capacity for ministry service under obedience. Risk stays connected to the God-vote and Holy Spirit obedience principles above.

• Think about children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
• David says the most important thing in his life is his family
• He has to focus on the family and ensure that the business lasts for another 150 years
• That is why they built the business so that it actually became a ministry
• They do not possess it in the usual sense
• They worked to eliminate a pure ownership mindset
• Explicit shift: from ownership to management
• We are managers, not owners, because the Bible says He owns everything
• So how can we own anything in the ultimate sense
• 100% of the votes belong to the family in their structure
• Goal: the family sees the business as duty to God, not a source of profit for themselves
• No one in the family gets anything they have not earned through hard work
• Contrast mindset: help the cause as service versus "it is a family business, it owes me"
• Part of why they wrote the book: what to do with a company worth a lot, and how to treat the family in it

Governance and family culture are built for multi-generation ministry stewardship. Earn-what-you-get rules protect the ministry posture across generations.

• As Christians, we need to realize that our family is more important than our business
• David tells leaders: the easiest thing for us is to be successful in business
• The most important thing is our marriage and our family
• Those things really need a lot of time and attention
• He does not worry about the time at Hobby Lobby, because if they take care of their family and their kids, they will take care of the business
• Closed on Sundays so people can go to church or have a day of rest
• Stores close at 8 p.m.
• About 66 hours a week, which David says is rare for a company of this size
• Warehouse classes on marriage and parenting support the same priority
• Motive order: firstly because it is the right thing to do, and secondly because it is good for business

Schedule design (Sundays off, close by 8 p.m., bounded hours) is a family-first practice, not a marketing slogan. Marriage and parenting classes at the warehouse reinforce the same priority.

• Servant leadership means genuinely caring about other people's families
• Ask what you can do best to support those families
• Lots of classes at the warehouse dedicated to marriage and raising children
• Managers average over 25 years of tenure
• Long retention is treated as a culture win, not an accident
• People-centered investment takes more time and energy than chasing the bottom line alone
• David says when you focus on people, the financial result tends to take care of itself
• Culture that values families makes people want to belong and stay
• Same motive order: right thing first, good for business second

Family-honoring culture and long manager tenure are evidence of employees-first leadership. Training and schedule design are treated as care for people, not only as HR compliance.

• Stay close to managers and the people you work with
• Listening is required both ways: you listen, they listen, then you usually reach agreement
• David never wants to move forward if he sees that the team is not with him
• He is not ready to go until they are ready
• Moving ahead only because you have power is not smart leadership
• Power is the last tool worth using
• Doing big moves without asking opinions can make you look like a real crazy person
• If you do that often, you are not a leader, and no one will want to follow
• Rally employees, learn their ideas, come to a joint decision
• About 99% of the time you can move united after that process

Major steps wait on manager buy-in rather than founder force. Joint decision-making is treated as real leadership, not delay.

• David says being CEO does not have to consume the whole day if the organization is strong
• Strong lawyer, strong accounting, and other specialists free him
• That free time is deliberately spent in his gift: merchandising, buying, selling, assortment, and product categories
• Build the organization so the leader is not consumed by every executive distraction
• Stay in the lane where you actually create value
• Freeing the leader to stay in the gift is an organizational design choice, not a personality quirk
• Pair this with the weeds examples in principle 10 as proof of the lane

Org strength lets the founder stay deep in product and assortment rather than drowning in every corporate task. Specialists cover what is not the founder's primary gift.

• As CEO, David says being CEO does not take all day when the organization is great
• His real passion is delving into the details in product categories
• Example: more than a week working only with tapes and ribbons
• Sizes, manufacturers, colors, literally thousands of options
• Someone, together with an excellent buyer, must choose the best assortment for the customer
• Example: an entire week on scissors across six different departments
• Different buyers handle different pieces
• Someone has to unify the assortment and confirm the right vendor
• Big retail change often lives in cost, assortment, and vendors, not only in high-altitude strategy slides
• He thanks God that even as CEO he still has time to delve into categories

The CEO still gets into ribbon, tape, and scissors-level assortment work on purpose. Category deep-dives are treated as leadership, not as busywork beneath the title.

• Hobby Lobby carries about 80,000 products
• That means about 80,000 retail prices
• Plus thousands of ship-quantity decisions for each store
• Complex "perfect" systems break under that volume
• They always look for a simple way to do all of this
• Otherwise it becomes too complicated
• Simple solutions are sometimes not perfect
• But they are better than perfect because they have a simple approach
• Sometimes simple trumps perfect, and more often than not, that is exactly what happens
• Kirk affirms: we need more simplicity, because life is quite complicated

Operating systems prefer simple methods that scale across tens of thousands of SKUs. Workable simplicity beats fragile perfection.

• Kirk quotes the biblical line: whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your best
• David connects wholehearted work to viewing the company as ministry more than a private family business
• He works six days a week, including Saturdays, because he loves the detail work
• He tells his wife that if she ever gets bored or feels like a widow on Saturdays, she can call and he will come home
• He does not have to be there
• But he really enjoys delving into the details
• Passion for the weeds is part of all-your-might obedience, not lifeless duty
• Applying all-your-might is especially natural when you already see the company as ministry

Wholehearted category work, including Saturdays, is how the CEO lives "all your might". Joy in the details is treated as obedience, not as workaholism for ego.