The Christian Business Owner Journey

Faith and Mission in the Christian Business Owner Journey: An Interview with Brooke Joiner

The Christian business owner journey can be a lonely one, but not if you walk it with your spouse. I recently sat down with Brooke Joiner, Co-Founder and CEO of Catholic Owned®, a Catholic business directory available online or via iOS & Android apps. Founded with the mission to regain the culture for Christ, Catholic Owned® "connects faithful Catholics with businesses they can trust" across the United States.

Joiner's path serves as a powerful example to Christian entrepreneurs. It's a story of extreme trust in the Lord and provides encouragement to entrepreneurs of all levels.

You can listen to the full interview on my YouTube channel, but here are some of my takeaways to business owners.
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The Role of Trust in the Journey

The idea came to her husband, Matteo, while they were working in a job that was misaligned with their faith. They initially worked on the idea part-time and were focused on Christian businesses generally.

Then two things changed.

They needed to work on it full-time to make it work, so they took an amazing leap of faith when their fourth child was a newborn: they quit their other job, they sold their house, and they went entirely in on the mission of growing the reach of values-based businesses.

Secondly, when asked to identify Catholic businesses in their directory, they realized they had around 5 out of the 150. They felt conflicted, and they turned it into conviction.

"We've given up our home, our careers, we have four children, and yet we cannot even help our own people," Joiner shares. They did about 87 interviews with Catholic businesses over the next 8 days before a pilgrimage/family trip which renewed their mission for the Church.

And they've been building it, together, ever since.

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Serving the Family as a Christian Business Owner

Joiner is especially passionate about working together with her spouse.

She views business as a vocation, after marriage and motherhood, and one she personally wouldn't trade for anything: "for all of those [vocations], God has given me the graces and the skills to do those things. So I view it as a responsibility, almost like an obligatory duty to make the most of all the skills and resources that he has given to me. And so that is how I think about it."

And when she works with her family, surrounded by her children at home, she sees it as a way to build stronger families.

"When we started Catholic Owned® way back when, a really important piece of our story is, 'okay, the job that we have now is not putting the family first. And so we're starting, we're building our own thing and we have to get the family right first and foremost and you build around that.' And a stay-at-home mom with a husband that's out 15 hours a day is not built for the family. So there's not putting a family first there."

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The Journey to Build the Church

It's a natural conclusion to Joiner that when we have stronger families and stronger businesses, we'll have a stronger Church.

"Catholic Owned® being successful means that there's never an Archbishop’s Appeal that is unfunded. Parishes are not closing. Schools are not scrambling or closing, right? A lot of Catholic schools consolidating. Catholic families are not struggling because they have, you know, work that pays them enough for them to live according to how they feel called to live. "

Businesses thriving means people intentionally purchasing, which drives the economic engine to change the culture.

And that alleviates the loneliness of the business owner journey, too: we're all in the mission together of bringing the world to Christ.

Joiner offers one final challenge and note of advice: don't overscrutinize fellow Christians and Catholics. There are liturgy wars. There are judgments about women working or school choice. But there is a larger spiritual battle to remember.

"Who is the real enemy in this world? It is not our fellow Catholics and our fellow Christians. Working together, we are truly stronger. That is how our beliefs can take root in the culture and we can have the impact that we desire."

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Join Other Christian Business Leaders on Catholic Owned®

Are you another Catholic business on the journey? Consider getting a listing on Catholic Owned® and intentionally Building the New Catholic Economy®.

Continue the conversation with Brooke Joiner on LinkedIn.

Thank you for your time, Brooke!

Have someone you'd like to see interviewed? Reach out to me with their name!

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