On September 15, around 300 people attended the FIRE in the Workplace Honors Banquet. Here are the stories of the workplace heroes honored that night.

Faith in the Workplace: Scott Rauth
Scott Rauth’s faith began impacting his work when he attended a conference hosted by Integrity Resource Center and others, featuring Ken Blanchard. This event had such a profound impact on him he joined a CEO roundtable group of other Christian business owners. Eventually he hired a young man who challenged him to begin praying for the business each morning. As the two of them began praying God led others to join them.

During a season of financial struggles Scott realized his priorities were out of order and made changes to better align his schedule with his desire to honor his family. God began blessing the business.
God recently led Scott to change his customer focus to nonprofits. Once again, God’s ways didn’t seem to make sense and even his advisory group questioned his decision. Why pursue business from an industry that’s not known to be very profitable? He took the plunge and God eventually blessed them with enough nonprofit customers that each succeeding year has been more successful than the last.

Scott has embarked on a new faith journey: a ministry called Telos Orphan Care with a vision that every orphan find a home.

Integrity in the Workplace: Bo Govea
Adversity is many times the best indicator of someone’s integrity. Bo Govea has experienced significant adversity in his life. With 3 kids and twins on the way Bo and his wife suddenly discovered the twins were in medical jeopardy. The doctors told them it was a one in a million chance of survival. While in Utah for a special procedure both babies were born early weighing less than 2 pounds each and spent the next 4 months in Utah fighting for their life. At one point they were told that one of the twins was going to die. They brought the rest of the kids to Utah to meet their sister but God answered the prayers of thousands of people and spared little Mary Elizabeth’s life.

Back in Kansas City many surgeries and trips to Children’s Mercy continued. Bo had missed a significant amount of work while in Utah so it was not a surprise when his boss asked upon his return if he was 100% committed. A friend reminded him that since he knew his family was going to continue to need him that it would be like stealing to continue taking a check from his employer. To preserve his integrity Bo resigned and started his own business.

Working two jobs, the medical bills were piling up with little hope of financial recovery. Even Christian advisors were advising them to declare bankruptcy. God sent a man, out of the blue, who offered to buy their house and rent it to them until they could buy it back. Their family is now on track to pay all of their creditors.
The Govea family which has now grown to 6 kids, is his most important ministry. He even developed a children’s accountability system called “10-20-30-Go! Families Functioning Faithfully” that has helped many families establish for their children 10 minutes in prayer, 20 minutes reading, and 30 minutes performing chores.

Bo’s growing insurance business is based on godly principles and high ethical standards. It’s these core values and his love of God that enabled him to tell a customer recently that a competitor had a better product and that he should buy it instead. That’s integrity!

Relationships in the Workplace: Dan Meers
Dan Meers, better know as the Kansas City Chiefs KC Wolf, has been given a unique platform to regularly reveal his love for God and for others in a big way. In over 300 presentations a year, touching the lives of millions of fans, Dan spends time in hospitals, birthday parties, churches, and even in businesses. He seizes the opportunities to love on those who are hurting, bring laughter and joy to many, and even fulfill the wishes of those terminally ill, like a man dying of cancer in Garden City, KS. One day Dan received a call from a man in Colorado asking if Dan would drive all the way to Garden City to visit this man’s dying brother. The dying brother was a big fan of Dan’s organization and the brother knew that Dan’s presence would make a big difference. Dan modified his schedule, and made the long trip.

He ended up doing a private performance for this terminally ill man, then spent over an hour with him personally. By the end of the evening Dan was leading this man in prayer. Two months later, upon this man’s passing, the brother wrote Dan to inform him of his brother’s death and to thank Dan for the amazing impact he had on his dying brother’s life.

Dan is known as a great role model for the young and old. He challenges, motivates and is outstanding at what he does. In his public role many would shy away from sharing their faith, yet Dan does regularly, always sensitive to do it with gentleness and respect. One of Dan’s favorite quotes is “Don’t pretend to be what you don’t intend to be -Live a life of humility and service and God will bless you.”

Excellence in the Workplace: Lisanne Milford
The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Modeling excellence in the workplace for many simply means high quality performance. God’s view, however, includes doing our work with all our heart. Lisanne Milford is a labor and delivery nurse at Shawnee Mission Medical Center, a wife, a mother of 3, and a pianist and volunteer at her church. She’s become known as a specialist in assisting families through the tremendous challenge of still born births. Imagine the pain of an expectant mother and father discovering that their child did not make it from the womb alive. After thousands of births, Lisanne has learned and shared that God loves each and every child, including the stillborn. With the parent’s permission, she offers a special blessing over every stillborn baby, and prays with the family during this indescribable time of heartache. This has led to many grief stricken families experiencing the love of Christ when they need it the most.

Lisanne’s excellence has been noted in many letters of thanks from grateful families. One couple wrote that they were amazed that this nurse came in on her day off to help with their birth, then when complications surfaced that required surgery, she ended up working 20 hours that day. This family was surprised that someone would care that much for them after meeting them for the first time that day. The husband later wrote, “Her obvious training and expertise make her a good nurse. Her great attitude, care, and understanding make her a great nurse. Her obvious compassion and her sacrifice of personal and family time for the sake of our family make her an exceptional nurse.”

Pastor Recognition: Tom Nelson
Many pastors are passionate about addressing family and marriage challenges, or to encourage evangelism or discipleship. It’s less common to find one who encourages and equips their community for the practical challenges of Monday morning in the workplace.

Tom Nelson, Senior Pastor of Christ Community Evangelical Free Church in Leawood understands that leadership is fraught with challenges. In 1988 Tom and his wife Liz moved to Kansas City from Dallas to launch a church out of his apartment. God blessed that humble beginning. Today he still leads the same church overseeing what is soon to be 4 campuses and over 40 staff members.

God has used Tom to equip hundreds of leaders to better understand the theology of work, and their role of advancing the gospel in the marketplace by living out a life of integrity and faith. An extensive leadership training program called Razor’s Edge has been a central focus of the discipleship efforts of the church for many years. This curriculum has led hundreds to a different view of the importance of their work to God and others. Soon Tom's new book called “Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship with Monday Work” will be released.

Through God’s direction in his life Tom has helped many to understand the importance of their work and their value to advancing God’s Kingdom right where they have been planted, often times in the workplace.