Redemptive Entrepreneur- David Weekley

David Weekley co-founded David Weekley Homes with his older brother, Dick Weekley. He was a guest on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast titled “Building More than Homes with David Weekley”.

He shared his testimony and the story behind creating the business and his experiences through it. He started the podcast off by talking about how he and his brother started the business and it grew to be very successful, resulting in lots of money and buying lavish, material things. The business went through a downhill phase when the market was doing bad in the 80s and he saw that he didn’t know what to do with the money he had and the money he was losing. He made a promise to “give him one more boom and he wouldn’t screw the next one up”. After he made that promise, the business started grow again, but he went through a hard time, having to get open heart surgery. After going through that surgery and going on a Christian retreat, he had a realization and decided to make that promise happen. After wanting to follow through with that promise, he decided to become chairman, hire a CEO, and gave half his time and money to charitable causes.

He faced a point in his career where he debated different aspects of the business, but said that God gave him the platform. Later in the interview, he said “From my standpoint, it all belongs to God anyway”. God gave him this platform and this business to shed light on their community outreach, their team in the business, and helping others. He also uses his platform to get to know and hear alot of peoples’ stories, especially his employees who he meets with weekly to catch up with them.

When asked about things he learned from this experience, he saw that many Christians do business with their head and give with their heart, not combining the two. He said we need to start combining the two and incorporate our faith into the week and into our work.

Overall, I found his story inspiring because he showed how God changed his heart and his mindset with faith and business and is using him as an example of how we can be redemptive in business and help others by serving God.