I love God’s church and I love His people.
I love how they show up in the workplace. I love when they bring their gifts, talents, and abilities into the marketplace. I love when they love people well.
And as a Christian business coach, I love seeing other Christian business coaches who selflessly show up and help entrepreneurs grow and scale for businesses.
But, there are some wolves in sheep’s clothing among us. And it’s been heavy on me for the last few months. Today, I’m asking for grace and more grace as I work to express a deep concern I have. What I am seeing on Instagram lately with some “Christian’ business coaches is lighting a fire in my bones and it’s time I share.
Here are 6 things I have seen this year that have absolutely boiled my blood … content coming from supposed Christian coaches. I shouldn’t need to say this but I’m going to anyway: this blog article is not to bring harm upon other Christian coaches (there are SO many good ones out there). Nor is it to add fuel to the fire of the cynic. If you’re a Christian who LOVES reading dirt on other Christians because it makes you feel superior or self-righteous, check yourself. (Luke 18:9-14)
The point here is that I want to warn female small business owners to mind your gurus. Please read this carefully, measure everything against the Bible, and then watch warily who you follow on social media. Be mindful about the courses and coaching you purchase. Be shrewd. (Matthew 10:16)
Sweet one, I love you and want what’s best for you. So please run away if you see or hear any of these things coming from your mentor, guru, or coach…
6 things (that some) Christian coaches are getting wrong about entrepreneurship:
1. “I have a revelation from God about your business.”
News flash: they don’t. Anyone who claims to have some kind of mystical powers (or special connection to God) to be able to grow your business is selling snake oil.
What God wants you to know from Him is found in His Word. You don’t need a special coach for that.
This is good news, sweet one! You become close to Him through reading His Word, spending time with Him, praying, and worshiping. That is it. He has not given someone else special abilities and magical powers to tell you something about your business that He himself would not tell you if you lean into Him. James 4:8 says draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James also tells us that when WE ask Him wisdom, He gives wisdom generously TO US.
This one really angers me: how helpless female entrepreneurs purchase super expensive coaching products because that coach has positioned herself as some sort of prophetess of God who is the only one who can help them grow and scale their business.
Run from them.
2. “A Spirit-led business.”
Newsflash: If you are a Christian and you own a business, you already have a Spirit-led business. Listen up: the Spirit of God does not rest only on a few special people. The Spirit infills every single person who is a follower of Jesus. He lives in anyone who has made Jesus the Lord and Savior of their life. YOU are Spirit-led, and Spirit filled. You don’t need a coach showing you how to have a “Spirit-led” business.
What’s worse is the thing they are talking about is the OPPOSITE of what you should do.
Way too often, I see people preaching and teaching about being Spirit-led, and what they preach is a business that operates from emotion, chaos, and constant, incessant pivoting.
Hear this: God is a God of ORDER. He is not a God of chaos. He is reliable. He is steadfast. He is unchanging.
Do you think His Spirit is the opposite?
From the very first chapter of Genesis to the very last chapter of Revelation, we see a God who is ordered in the way that He does things. He created all the world in a set, specific order. He chose His disciples in a set, specific order. Jesus lived his life in an orderly manner. He didn’t call 12 disciples and then the very next day wake up and tell four of them to go home, the Spirit led Him a different way.
When God does something, He does it in an orderly way. We insult Him to suggest His Spirit leads people 17 different ways in a 24-hour period of time, that it ebbs and flows and is ever-changing. He is reliable. We can count on Him. He does what He says He is going to do. Every time.
And yet many of the Christian business coaches talking about “Holy Spirit-led business” are the very same ones driving their entire team and customers crazy because they are totally and completely UNRELIABLE. They are ever-changing. Ever pivoting. Unsettled. Erratic. Fickle.
That is not a Holy-Spirit led business.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8.
God is not changing. He does not wake up every day and figure out what He’s doing based on hormones, emotions, or the podcast He listened to on His morning walk.
So I’m going to just come out and say it:
We do His kingdom an absolute disservice when we operate our businesses from a place of chaos. When we start a podcast for 3 episodes because we think He told us to only neglect it and go and start a YouTube channel the following week… only to neglect that and go and start a TikTok account because we listened to this great podcast about it… only to neglect that and try to become a public speaker.
This is what I mean by chaos. That is not a Spirit-led business. It is an immature, flesh-led business.
One of my favorite Dave Ramsey quotes is: Adults do what needs to be done, children do what feels good. How have we ended up in a place where people equate a Spirit-led business with waking up every day and doing what feels good?
We can look at the life of Jesus and see dedicated to submission to God, not doing whatever He felt like doing every day. We see a life of endurance, patience, and long suffering (Hebrews 12).
Do you want a Spirit-led business? You don’t have to pay a coach for it. You already have it.
Anyone who tells you differently is a heretic.
Run from them.
3. “Get in the Flow.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a coach or course creator talk about being in Flow, I would never have to work again. (Funny thing is, I still would. Because I love what I do and I don’t want to ever leave it. But I digress…)
This typically falls in the same camp as #2 above. These people who act like being in the Flow is some sort of mystical river that we wake up and float down happily all our days? Yeah, these are the same coaches who have broken links on their website, customers who are disappointed or frustrated with them, and an inbox filled to overflowing.
I feel like the undisciplined ones who became gurus have embraced the term Flow in a way that makes them sound mystical and set apart from us poor humans struggling to do today’s work.
I don’t buy it. Their Flow seems to be nothing more than leaning into their immature desire to wake up and do what they want to do, when they want to do it.
There is little to no strategy on growing an actual business with the “Work in the Flow” coaches. Like number two above, they operate from a place of emotion. They are tapping into the flesh- based desire of having a life of simplicity – a life free from rules, challenges, discomfort, hustle, or strain.
That is simply not the way a healthy business is built. Being in Flow state all the time isn’t a real thing.
We live in a fallen world, sweet entrepreneur. That means that our business is going to feel hard at times. We are going to wake up and have to do things we do not want to do that day. Sometimes we will feel inspired to create, sometimes we will not. Sometimes we will be ready to work on our book or our podcast, sometimes it is going to be an absolute grueling grind to get through it.
But we keep the promises we make to ourselves. And that has nothing to do with Flow.
You don’t need a coach to teach you how to operate in the Flow when what they really mean is waking up and doing what you want to do all day.
Run from them.
4. “God can’t bless your business unless…”
Stop. Just stop. God can and will do whatever God wants to do. Full stop.
There is nothing you can say or do that can possibly help Him along.
This whole concept would be laughable if it wasn’t actually happening. Yet every day on Instagram, I see a reel with the words, “God can’t bless your business unless you do these 3 things” splashed across the front.
How is this even considered acceptable? Seriously girls? This? amongst Christians?
God doesn’t need us. I cannot believe I have to even say this.
These coaches who make it seem like you need to purchase their course in order to know how to manipulate God into blessing your business are so outrageously and disgustingly perverse, and they’re understanding of Scripture so warped, I cannot even stand to watch.
God cannot be manipulated by some kind of prayer strategy – or by that coach or by any kind of theological-anthropocentrism-meets-business-coaching worldview. God does not need us to do anything in order to accomplish what He wants to accomplish.
God does not rely on us. Yes, He uses us as His vessels. He loves when we have willing hearts and eager hands to do His work.
But anyone who indicates that you have to say a certain prayer or do a certain thing in order for God to work on your behalf is putting themselves in a position that is higher than God. Seriously, women are doing this for reels views? It’s like the world’s gone insane.
He is the God of the universe! And to even indicate that we have to do some sort of special thing in our business or say some kind of special words in order for Him to accomplish what He wants to accomplish is flat-out ridiculous. These coaches need to read the Word and check themselves. How arrogant one must be to teach this.
Run from them.
5. “God won’t bless your business unless…”
See #4 above.
Run from them.
6. “God wants His people to be millionaires.” Or “God wants His children to be rich.”
This one is so pervasive that it’s the main one you, dear reader, are likely to seriously struggle with. Because we have an odd, westernized view of God … a part of us that wants to have God AND we’re convinced that God wants us to have lots of money. We are so convinced of this, the pastors and coaches who preach that God wants you to be rich, typically are rich themselves. Because everybody wants that secret sauce they’re selling.
But let’s explore this belief, based entirely on Scripture.
So what about the disciples who lived in abject poverty, all the days of their lives? God didn’t want to bless them? He didn’t love them? They weren’t His children?
What about the God-fearing, God-loving, orphan right now in Somalia, living on a garbage heap? God doesn’t love him? God doesn’t want him to be rich? God doesn’t want to bless him? God only wants to bless the white entrepreneurs in the USA?
We need to check our hearts if we are consuming content and hiring coaches who tell us that God guarantees blessing or wants any of us to be wealthy.
I once worked (short stint) with a Christian female entrepreneur who told people that being a millionaire was their “divine birthright.”
Where do I even start?
How about with Scripture. It’s going to speak for itself. Will we listen?
1 Timothy 6 (the majority of the chapter) warns about pursuing wealth, money, possessions, things. Like we straight up are NOT to desire to be rich.
“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.”
We are NOT supposed to desire to be wealthy. Does this shock you? This passage literally says that people who chase wealth will impale themselves through with many sorrows. Yikes. I have no desire to be impaled on anything.
You can’t mix the two desires into one. It doesn’t work. Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Christian coaches are making a lot of money by tapping into the flesh-based, not Spirit based, desire for money, riches, and STUFF. They call themselves 7-figure-business coaches. Do you follow them and buy from them because your greatest desire is to be a millionaire?
Now, it is certainly not wrong to BE wealthy. But it is wrong to pursue it. It is wrong to be obsessed with money – to say that it is our God-given birthright. It’s not.
It is wrong to talk about and want money more than we talk about and want God. I cannot believe this American trend of wanting seven and eight figure businesses and acting like it is our God-given right as His children to have those things. It is egotistical and western-thought-centered beyond anything else I think I see online. And it turns my stomach.
We are to pursue godliness, holiness, purity, love for others. We are not to pursue wealth.
Do I think it is wrong for Christian coaches to tell people that God wants them to be rich? Yes. Study Scripture, and prove me wrong. I am open to a discussion if you can present biblical proof. We can have a conversation in the Instagram DM’s if you’d like.
If you find yourself following Christian coaches who are combining the pursuit of wealth with a God-centered business…
Run from them.
I’ll leave you with this:
Proverbs 23:4-5 (NIV):
“Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.”
Luke 12:15 (NIV):
“Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.'”
Proverbs 11:28 (NIV):
“Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.”
Ecclesiastes 5:10 (NIV):
“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.”
Hebrews 13:5 (NIV):
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'”
James 5:1-3 (NIV):
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”
Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV):
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves (treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
God help us for wanting anything except You.
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Disclaimer: While Kelly is a certified business coach this post is for informational purposes only and may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as financial advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace legal or financial advice. Always check with your own legal or financial team before trying or implementing any information read here. As an Amazon Associate Kelly also earns from qualifying purchases.
