Three Things That Business Has Taught Me About Value Creation As A Christian
Here are some unexpected insights I have gained about humanity’s role as value creators by growing a business.
1. Value creation is a spiritual endeavour
Turning raw materials or chaos into order and beauty is a task bigger than ourselves.
An abandoned building can become an asset, raw materials can become something useful and beautiful, a new product or solution can change health, housing or transportation for humanity forever.
This value creation mirrors humanity’s role as gardeners, extending order, abundance, and care, while protecting what is good from decay and harm.
As Francis Bacon wrote, one of the greatest acts of human good is creating knowledge and inventions that improve humanity’s condition over time.
2. Value creation compounds
The parable of the talents is fundamentally about multiplication. It’s not about having the most, but stewarding well what you’ve been given and growing it.
I’ve realised I sometimes equated virtue with giving everything away, rather than building and multiplying first. Giving comes from surplus; building comes from principle.
If we truly want to help others, we should help them multiply what they have, not just distribute what we have.
3. Value creation is systemic
We don’t have wealth because we are virtuous, we have wealth because we exist inside of value creating systems that enable value to be created and compounded.
Simply distributing money without strengthening systems is ineffective. Real change comes from building value engines: institutions, norms, governance, and local capability.
Community development is long-term, relational, and complex. Donations fade; systems endure. To truly help, you must live within a community, understand it deeply, and build from within.
Ultimately:
Wealth creation often follows a Pareto distribution.
This is difficult for Christians ( including me) who believe in the equal dignity of all human life—extreme inequality can feel morally confronting.
Our instinct is to give to relieve suffering, but without understanding how value is created, sustained, and multiplied, we risk addressing symptoms rather than causes.
Business is powerful, spiritual and when done well restorative. Left wing ? Right wing? Business is cross cutting when seen through a spiritual lens.