The Essence of an Irresistible Invitation

Jul 2019 Blog.png

The Essence of an Irresistible Invitation

Charlie Paparelli

A recent conversation with my friend William caused me to reflect on how people get invited to the High Tech Prayer Breakfast. This got me thinking about my first prayer breakfast invite.

As I was having lunch with William, he told me how he was invited to his first Atlanta High Tech Prayer Breakfast. 

When he got the invite his immediate thought was, “If Joe asks me to do anything, I do it. But a prayer breakfast?” 

William continued, “Joe is a decade older than me. He is one of my most admired fraternity brothers and a guy who lives life right. He was such a great mentor while I was at Georgia Tech and early in my career. I have so much respect for him.

“So, I agreed to go,” concluded William.

My first prayer breakfast story.

Robert and I worked together on a startup. We spent many a night huddled in the computer room writing and testing software for the next release of the product. We were in business planning and review sessions together. We hung out after work. We grew to love each other. We were friends. Then Robert moved to Dallas, Texas.

Robert was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. I didn’t want anything to do with religion. I’d had a bad experience with religion, and I wasn’t going back.

Eight years after we stopped working together, Robert returned to Atlanta. He invited me to the Atlanta High Tech Prayer Breakfast. Over those eight years, much had changed in my life. I was now married for 16 years and had four children. I had lost my best job ever and was attending AA meetings.

Robert did not know this was going on in my life. He didn’t know because I didn’t tell him. But having worked in the startup trenches together, we still had a relationship. He leveraged this relationship when he asked me to attend the prayer breakfast with him.

Timing is everything.

Robert didn’t know it, but I was sick and tired of being in charge of my life. I felt like an employee who was promoted to a position he was not equipped to handle. I felt alone and ill-equipped to be a good provider, good businessman, good husband, and good father. It all seemed too much, overwhelming at times. Little did Robert know; his invitation came just in time.

I was open to hearing about God.

Back to William’s story.

William said, “I was overwhelmed by the number of people in attendance. It seemed like thousands. Because it was Atlanta tech folks, I either knew or recognized many of them. I felt right at home.”

“But something happened at breakfast. One of the speakers asked, ‘Who is in charge of your life?’ I was stunned by the question. It hit me hard because I knew I needed God in my life. I believed in God but didn’t know him or how to connect with him.

“Then, the speaker asked the whole audience to stand if today was the day we would give our life to Jesus Christ and be reconciled to God. There were over one thousand people there, but I thought he was talking just to me. Before I knew it, I was standing.

“Joe came through again. I thank God he loved me enough to invite me to the Atlanta High Tech Prayer Breakfast. It changed my life!”

Here’s the key.

Our two stories track perfectly.

A friend who loved us invited us to attend the breakfast.

And that’s why we had to say, “Yes.”

Mark your calendar: High Tech Prayer Breakfast is Friday, October 4. Secure your table now.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.

The Story of Blitz Thru the Bible

Jun 2019 Blog.png

The Aha Moment Behind Blitz Thru the Bible 

Ask a Different Question, 
Get the Right Answer

Charlie Paparelli

I woke up with a start. I knew the answer. I was asking the wrong question.

The question I was wrestling with was this, “How do I get the High Tech Prayer Breakfast table hosts to invite their guests to an event after the breakfast?”

Suddenly I knew I was asking the wrong question.

The real question should be, “How do I get the guests to invite their table hosts to an event after the prayer breakfast?”

The answer was simple. Create an event the guests want to go to whether or not their table host is interested. 

Easier said than done, you might think. But God is big. He came up with just the thing.

In 1993, I was invited to my very first High Tech Prayer Breakfast. It was the second breakfast ever. I left that breakfast interested in knowing more about God and, more specifically, Jesus. The message from the speaker was clear: “You, too, can have a personal relationship with God.” 

I wanted to know more.

I contacted Bill Leonard who I found out was the founder of the High Tech Prayer Breakfast. He recommended going to a Bible study as my next step in learning more. I went but I was lost. I like context. I like to know where I am and where I am going. 

My previous experience with the Bible was church services. In the service, the Bible was opened and a selected reading was recited. Even though it might have been an interesting sentence or two, I didn’t have any context. Where did it come from? Why these sentences? How does it fit into the story of the book? The questions kept coming for me. I didn’t know where to go to get them answered.

Then I started leading a Bible study

When I started to lead a Bible study, I realized pretty quickly I was not alone. The people who attended wanted to know the same thing. They wanted context. So I asked them, “Who wants to take a year and go through the whole Bible with me?” The hands went up. I did this with them, and the result was amazing.

We learned about the God of the Bible, the significance of Jesus, the message of the Bible, and the organization of the Bible. 

We had context!

When I woke up that night, I knew this was the answer to the question. The next problem to solve was more simply stated. “How can I lead people through the whole Bible in less than two hours?”

I dedicated an entire week to solving this problem.

This was the birth of Blitz through the Bible. 

I went over the one-year curriculum we covered in my Bible study group. I then selected the readings which were most relevant to creating a context in the shortest amount of time. With these selected readings, I created a format which could be used to engage every attendee and keep it interesting, fun, and informative.

Blitz through the Bible was created.

The first time we announced this at the breakfast, over 400 guests expressed an interest in attending. 

We held the first Blitz at Villa Christina Restaurant in Sandy Springs. When I walked into the ballroom, I was shocked. There were over 200 present. 

The reviews were amazing. 

  • “In two hours I came to understand the message of the Bible.”

  • “I now know who the God of the Bible really is.”

  • “When you read, ‘They created man and woman in their image,’ it blew my mind.”

  • “Now I know who Jesus is and why he came. And I was surprised that he promises to return.”

  • “This was the best two and a half hours I ever spent seeking my spirituality.”


All this was so encouraging. I wish I could say I was smart enough to come up with this idea and curriculum. I’m not. I simply got to the right question. God gave the answer.

Come to the next Blitz through the Bible.

Come join us on June 19th at Atlanta Tech Village from 5 pm to 7:30 pm. If you ever wanted to understand the Bible, to get the context I talked about, this is your opportunity. Sign up here.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.

Tell Your (Whole) Story

May 2019 Blog.png

How to be a Christian in Business

Tell Your (Whole) Story

Charlie Paparelli

This is part of a series on taking Jesus to work.

I was asked to present to Peachtree United Methodist Church on the topic of becoming known as a Christian. This forced me to think about what happened to me after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

You'll see how each step was guided by my good friend and mentor, Bill Leonard. Bill, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, put me in situations where I shared my faith. Most of the time, it was by just being there, but sometimes I needed to speak boldly.


I attended a breakfast the other day at the invitation of Bill Leonard. He wanted me and others to meet Nancy Ortberg. She is the wife of pastor, writer, and speaker John Ortberg who leads a church in Silicon Valley. She leads Transforming the Bay Area with Christ, a nonprofit in the Valley started by Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware.


Bill is always on the lookout for great speakers who will share their faith story for the High Tech Prayer Breakfast. He believed Nancy would be a good referral source for speakers. After all, she and her husband have been serving in the Valley for over ten years.

There were six of us at that breakfast—Nancy, Bill, me, Blake Patton of Tech Square Ventures, Chad Merrill of Fellowship of Companies for Christ International, and Tim Erwin, a behavioral psychologist, author, and speaker. We only had an hour, and there were multiple agendas.

At one point during the breakfast, Tim Erwin looked at Blake and said, “I don’t know you. Could you share a bit of your story?”

I know Tim was looking to understand what Blake does for a living and why he was at this breakfast. But that’s not how Blake took the question.

If Blake was asked this question in any other environment, I am sure he would have talked about his resume and Tech Square Ventures. But because of this very Christian crowd, he answered more completely. He shared his life with all of us. He talked about his wife, Stephanie, and his kids, Luke and Alexa. Then he talked about his career and transitioned to his faith in Jesus Christ and how it happened. I noticed everyone leaned in for this part of his story because it was here he shared his heart. He finished up with the great work he is doing with his VC fund and Engage at the ATDC.

But it didn’t stop there.

Tim’s request of Blake to tell his story turned into each of us telling our story. Person by person in a clockwise direction, we shared. First Blake, then Chad, then me, then Tim, and finally Bill. For some reason, Nancy didn’t share her story. It was probably because she was our host and was assumed to be so well known.

The breakfast was special.

Everybody’s agenda was satisfied, but something no one expected happened. We really got to know each other in a very short time. When our hour was up, Nancy had to run to another meeting. All of us Atlanta people were left to talk. It was interesting how we paired off and stuck around for the next hour. 

I believe this happened because we became closer over a meal. We shared our stories. We shared our hearts. We shared our struggles. We shared our personal lives. We shared our successes. We shared our common belief in Jesus as our Savior. All in one hour with six people present.

I do this all the time.

I recently met with a young man who just sold his business. He netted close to $100 million. An amazing accomplishment at any age. And here he is in his early thirties.

I was introduced to him by a friend who said, “I met Tom at an industry association we both belong to. He just sold his company. I think you can help him sort through his next step in life and career.”

Tom and I met at Starbucks. 

It was busy and noisy, but we found one of those two-person tables wedged among lots of other two-person tables. To our left was a lady talking to someone across from her. To our right was a guy wearing headphones who was typing on his computer.

I asked Tom lots of questions about his early life and business and his life now. I got him talking...a lot. As I was about to ask the next question, he stopped me and said, “I was really curious about your story.”

When he asked this, I knew I needed to tell my “whole”  story. Not only my career but also my family, my success, my alcoholism, and my search for the God who saved me from this dreaded disease. 

It all came out. 

And it all flowed quite naturally. Tom, who is Jewish, listened intently and respectfully, just as I had to him.

We walked away from that one-hour meeting closer to each other. He shared his life, and I shared mine. He, a man in his early thirties, and me, a man in my mid-sixties. But we connected because we told each other our whole stories. 

This series was originally a talk. To listen click here.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.
 

Share What's On Your Mind

Apr 2019 Blog.png

How to be a Christian in Business

Share What's On Your Mind

Charlie Paparelli

This is part of a series on taking Jesus to work.

I was asked to present to Peachtree United Methodist Church on the topic of becoming known as a Christian. This forced me to think about what happened to me after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

You'll see how each step was guided by my good friend and mentor, Bill Leonard. Bill, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, put me in situations where I shared my faith. Most of the time, it was by just being there, but sometimes I needed to speak boldly.


If you believe it and live it and share it, people won’t forget it.

In several conversations over a period of years, Richard Brock, my former partner in my first business, has repeated what Ricky Steele told him.

Richard brings it up whenever we are in the midst of struggling with a challenge he is facing. 

He tells the story like this: 

“I was attending a tech conference in Atlanta over fifteen years ago when I ran into Ricky Steele. In the conversation, I was telling him about a business problem which was bringing me to my knees. 

“Ricky replied, ‘Having faith in Jesus doesn’t mean you won’t have problems in your life. But your faith in Jesus will help you get through those problems.’”

Richard told me, “When Ricky said this, it didn’t mean anything to me. I just let it go. But months later, I found myself struggling again, and this time it was a personal issue. That’s when I remembered what Ricky said. It jumped into my head like he was standing next to me.”

He went on, “I can’t tell you how important Ricky’s belief statement was to me. I know Ricky is a Christian. He never hid that from anyone. But what he told me helped me grow in my faith, even though it took a while to become a part of me and what I believe. Now the first place I go when I’m struggling is to Jesus. And you know what? He gets me through whatever I’m dealing with at the time.”

The conversation Richard had with Ricky so many years ago literally changed Richard’s life. 

I’m sure when Ricky reads this, he isn’t even going to remember the conversation. He won’t remember what it was about. Nor will he remember speaking those two sentences. That’s because Ricky’s foundation is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who is within him.

Ricky thinks about Jesus because he walks with Jesus. The words he shared with Richard simply rolled off his tongue because he is a follower of Jesus. I know Ricky. He is a lot like me. If it is on our mind, it is out of our mouth. 

What I learned.

Being an active witness for Jesus Christ in the workplace is simple. It is an outpouring of who I am and how I serve. If I am serving myself that day, what I say doesn’t stick to anyone. If I’m serving Jesus, what I say sticks to everyone. 

I’ve run into people who told me, “When we met, you told me something I’ll never forget. It changed my life.”

I think of these as Holy Spirit moments. I know I am not capable of coming up with just the right words which change lives. But God is capable. He is in the changing lives business.

I always ask, “What did I say?”

Then they tell me and I say, “That was good, really good. I know it didn’t come from me. That was the Holy Spirit speaking through me.”

God uses us wherever we are. Just tell people what’s on your mind, trusting He put it there.


This series was originally a talk. To listenclick here.

Start Your Own Ministry...The Easy Way

Mar 2019 Blog.jpg

How to be a Christian in Business

Start Your Own Ministry ...The Easy Way

Charlie Paparelli

This is part of a series on taking Jesus to work.

I was asked to present to Peachtree United Methodist Church on the topic of becoming known as a Christian. This forced me to think about what happened to me after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

You'll see how each step was guided by my good friend and mentor, Bill Leonard. Bill, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, put me in situations where I shared my faith. Most of the time, it was by just being there, but sometimes I needed to speak boldly.

 
“I need your help. Will you meet with me?” asks the entrepreneur.

“Sure. I’d be happy to,” I say. “Let’s do this. I’ll meet you at the ATDC at 10:30 am, and we’ll go through your business. When our meeting is over, would you be willing to join me at a Bible study at the ATDC? It starts at 11:45 am and ends promptly at 1 pm. You’ll meet some new people and have a new experience. You’ll even get a free lunch. What do you say?” 

More often than not, people say, “Yes.”

This has kept the Grace@Work at the ATDC front and center for me. It has also helped to grow the study. Cortney Alexander leads the study and has been leading for a couple of years. He does a great job, and people do come back. Many have come to know the Word of God, and many now know Jesus as King and Savior because of this simple invite.

And all I do is ask people to join me after I help them with their business. 

Here’s how it all started.

In October 1994 I got a call from Bill Leonard. He is the premier real estate broker for fast growth startups in our Atlanta tech community. He is also the founder of the High Tech Prayer Breakfast. 

He told me that he and Emma Morris were going to lead a four-week Bible study after the Breakfast. 

“Why are you calling me?” I asked.

“I found you that great office space in Interstate North. Emma and I think this would be a perfect location to host people who are interested in attending a Bible study. So can we use your conference room?” he asked.

“When is the study?” I replied.

“The study will run from 7 am to 8 am on Fridays. I’ll even pay you for any coffee we drink. Will you give me access to your office and let us use your conference room and kitchen?” he asked.

I answered, “That is not a problem. I’ll get you a key, and don’t worry about the coffee.” 

“Thank you.” Then he added, “You know you can join us.”

I was thinking to myself, I’ve got enough going on with my wife, driving the kids to school, and investing and helping operate three businesses. I don’t have time for this.

But I said, “Sure, Bill. Since it is only four weeks, I’ll be happy to join you and Emma.”

That was how I started going to Bible study in a tech company office. That’s how the first Bible study started in my office. 

At the end of the fourth meeting, Bill announced, “Well, that’s it. This is the last meeting. Thanks for attending.”

I said, “Hold on! I like coming to this Bible study. I was learning a lot about the Bible, and it was great to discuss my questions about God and Jesus with everybody. Why does this have to be the last meeting?”

I looked around, and the other five people in the study, besides Bill and Emma, were all agreeing with me.

Bill said, “Well, I’m not signing up to lead a study here going forward.” 

Emma jumped in and said, “I’ll come for a couple of weeks to make sure you guys are on track, but I’m not a long-term leader either.” 

I said, “OK. I’ll lead the study since this is my office. Is that OK with all of you?” Everyone agreed.

Emma stepped in and said, “You’ve never led a study, and you really don’t know the Bible, do you?”

“Nope.” I answered. “But I promise we will read the Bible and discuss it. My interest is to continue to do what you did for the last four weeks.”

Emma said, “OK. I’ll come for a few weeks. I’ll be there to help you lead. I’ll guide you on how to facilitate a Bible study. If you do OK and everybody stays interested, I’ll step out and give it to you guys.”

Within a year, that study grew from five of us to over thirty people. We kept inviting our friends and business associates to join us. At one point, I would be leading the study in our conference room with people two deep and with chairs behind me leading to my lobby. It was nuts. It wasn’t long before we split the study into two groups.

God really blessed it.

As I look back, I see the significance of using this Bible study as my own ministry. That Bible study was initially the ministry of the founding five guys. It grew, as did Cortney’s ministry at the ATDC, to include many others. 

If you attend one of the Grace@Work groups on a regular basis, I challenge you to make it your ministry. Your way of introducing people to the God of the Bible and his Son, Jesus Christ. All you have to do is ask them to join you. How simple is that?

This series was originally a talk. To listen click here.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.
 

How to be a Christian in Business

Feb 2019 Blog.jpg

How to be a Christian in Business

Step 2: Realize Who Put You There

Charlie Paparelli

This is step two in a series on taking Jesus to work.

I was asked to present to Peachtree United Methodist Church on the topic of becoming known as a Christian. This forced me to think about what happened to me after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

You'll see how each step was guided by my good friend and mentor, Bill Leonard. Bill, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, put me in situations where I shared my faith. Most of the time, it was by just being there, but sometimes I needed to speak boldly.

Step 2: Realize whose you are and who put you there.

“I invite you and Kathy to join Sandy and me in attending the FCCI Conference,” said Bill Leonard.

The year was 1996. In July 1995, while driving to Hilton Head to join my family, I surrendered my life to Christ. I asked him to forgive me, take my sin and my guilt, and lead me as my Lord and Savior.

When Bill saw the change in my life, he knew I was ready. That’s why he invited me to the FCCI Conference.

“What is FCCI?” I asked.

“It stands for Fellowship of Companies for Christ International,” he answered.

“Who attends this conference?” I asked.

“Business owners and leaders from around the world whose desire is to be on purpose for Jesus Christ in the workplace. We call ourselves marketplace ministers,” he said.

So Kathy and I flew to The Ritz Carlton Hotel in Jamaica. 

The conference was in Half Moon Bay, and it was gorgeous. 

The hotel staff picked us up at the airport and escorted us through check-in and right to our room. We had a beautiful view of the gardens with the Atlantic ocean in the background. I was thinking, “I’m going to like this.”

We unpacked and dressed for the cocktail reception. As I reached for the handle to open the door, Kathy stepped in front of me and said, “Before we leave the room, I need to know something.” 

“OK. What is it?” I asked.

“What is it you do? People ask me this all the time, and I don’t know how to answer them,” she said.

“Tell them I’m a Christian venture capitalist,” I blurted out. 

I was struggling with this question for a long time. I became an angel investor in 1993. When people asked me what I did for a living, I would say, “I invest in entrepreneurs who want to start an information technology services company.” People got that. It was easy. 

Then I became a Christian. That’s when my struggles began. 

We all know we are who we hang with. Well, I was hanging out with Bill Leonard, Emma Morris, Regi Campbell, Curt Cain, and Rusty Gordon. All of these people were committed Christ followers who knew the Bible really well. 

I knew nothing but was anxious to learn. There was something about them which was different. The best way for me to describe it is, “They were business people operating on a higher mission.” 

They weren’t just about the work they did and how they made money. They were on mission for Jesus Christ. Because of this, they found fulfillment in business which I was missing. And I very much wanted what they had. 

I had joined my first startup 18 years earlier. 

When I was fortunate enough to meet Richard Brock, my startup life began. Eventually we became partners in the business he started. He was five years older and a lifetime smarter in business. In fact, until I started working with Richard at 22, I couldn’t even define business. 

But Richard changed everything for me. When his lips were moving, I was learning. I listened to everything he said and watched everything he did. He was a great teacher. He loved being an entrepreneur and businessman. I loved him, and, because he made it look like so much fun, I fell in love with business.

But over the years, business became more and more about the money. We eventually sold our business and got a big hit. Back then we called it life-changing money. I went on to work in president roles for several corporations. I held positions of authority, and the money was good. I continued to learn and develop as a businessman under great mentors and leaders. 

As I approached the second half of my thirties, something changed. I realized business wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. 

There was a smallness that began to creep in on me. 

The purpose became more and more about the money. And when it became about the money, I started not liking who I was becoming or the relationships I was creating. In short, business was unfulfilling. And since this was where I was spending all my time, I was unfulfilled. Here is a link to the rest of my story.

These Christian business people made business meaningful again. My goal at the conference was to figure out what they had figured out. Bill and all the rest of the gang I was hanging out with had something I wanted. And now, at the FCCI Conference, I was surrounded by people who had discovered the secret to fulfillment in business. I wanted to know. I wanted what they had.

I was there looking for this higher order of fulfillment in business. But I got lost in the details. I was asking the wrong questions. I was asking “What” and “How” questions.

  1. What do you do at work as a Christian in business?

  2. How do you talk about your faith in business?

  3. What do you do with your profits?

  4. How do you treat employees?

  5. What do you put on your webpage about your faith?

  6. How do you describe your business so people know you are a Christian?


The question I should have asked was “Why.”

  • Why do you believe integrating your faith into your business is so important?


This is the question. And here is what I discovered at that conference. Here is how I answered it.

God gave me the spirit of a leader. He put me in business and gave me the skills and personality for business. He surrounded me with the exact right people to teach, guide, and mentor me in business. He showed me opportunities. All this happened before I even knew Jesus. 

Then I surrendered my life to Christ.

That’s when I received my new mission, his mission. I am a man of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, and a witness for Him. He led me to Atlanta early-stage technology companies. I did not choose this market. It was given to me by God. He equipped me with the experiences and relationships of a lifetime. I am uniquely His man in this market, serving it with his methods and sharing his message.

And that’s when the fulfillment in business happened. The “What and How” questions kept coming, but they were now easily answered.

This series was originally a talk. To listen click here.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.

How to be a Christian in Business

Jan 2019 Blog.jpg

How to be a Christian in Business

Part 1
Charlie Paparelli

This is a multi-part series on taking Jesus to work. 

I was asked to present to Peachtree United Methodist Church on the topic of becoming known as a Christian. This forced me to think about what happened to me after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

You'll see how each step was guided by my good friend and mentor Bill Leonard. Bill, with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, put me in situations where I shared my faith. Most of the time, it was by just being there, but sometimes I needed to speak boldly.

Step 1: Let everyone know you are Christian, a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Shortly after surrendering my life to Jesus Christ, I ran into Bill Leonard at a Southeast Software Association meeting. The meeting had just concluded, and I found myself walking out of the Doubletree Hotel with Bill and his associate at the time.

"I want to thank you. God used you to change my life," I told him.

"How's that?" he asked.

"After the last High Tech Prayer Breakfast, I told you I needed your help. You were kind enough to meet with me," I answered. "You told me about the Leadership Ministries men's Friday Bible study. It was there I learned about Christ's love for me through the men who attended. I also was introduced to the Bible, which has been an amazing gift to me."

"That's great," he said.

"But there is more," I said as I gathered my courage to tell him what I really wanted to say. "I recently surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and Savior."

Without a moment's hesitation, Bill said, "You need to be a table host for the next High Tech Prayer Breakfast."

"I can't do that. People know me."

"And they sure as heck don't know me as a guy who invites people to a prayer breakfast. Anywhere else, but not a prayer breakfast," I answered.

"If you surrendered your life to Jesus, you need to do this. You must stand and be counted as one of his new disciples. This is what Jesus wants us to do. And the easiest and best way to do it in our tech community is to become a table host for the next breakfast."

We continued this heated discussion all they way to the parking deck. As I remember it, Bill and his associate were relentless in achieving their goal of me becoming a table host. After five more minutes of them insisting and me objecting, I said, "Sign me up."

Within a few months, it was time.

I began inviting people to the High Tech Prayer Breakfast. Up until this time, I was quietly attending the Bible study Bill introduced me to and quietly beginning to go to church.

In these environments, I was Charlie the celebrated new Christian who was hungry to learn more about the God who sacrificed his only Son for me. In business and with friends, I was Charlie the businessman and friend...good guy but never mentioning Jesus.

Now I had to invite people in Atlanta technology to the Prayer Breakfast.Whom should I invite? Who would benefit from hearing the stories told at the breakfast? The answer was easy. Everyone I knew. Since I never hung out with Christians, I had a big market to draw from.

I decided to jump in with both feet. I would invite my closest friends first. I might as well tell them about my new found life instead of letting them discover my new faith over time. I came to the conclusion I would be more authentic by doing it this way.

I was elated. Everybody I invited accepted!

I guess they had to see what was going on. "Charlie Paparelli invited me to attend a prayer breakfast. This has to be good."

When the breakfast started, I put my forearms on my thighs with my head down. 

I was afraid to look my guests in the eye. I knew they were going to hear stories from these tech business people about how Jesus had changed their lives forever.

After hearing this, they would probably guess the same thing had happened to me. And they would be right. This was my way of letting them know, "I am now a Christian."

When the breakfast was over, each of them came to me, shook my hand, and thanked me. They thought the event was inspiring, well-done, and informative.

One of my closer friends waited and approached after everyone else departed.

He said, "I had no idea you were a Christian."

This one comment and his sincerity in making this statement was the beginning of a multi-year conversation. My faith journey would come up over coffee, at dinners, and while playing golf. He wanted to know more and more about my faith. I found out later why he was so curious.

At this friend's 60th birthday party, he made some personal observations about each of his closest friends. When he came to me, he said, "Charlie is the only man I ever knew who actually changed." I will never forget what he said and where I was when he said it. He noticed I was born again.

Because of Bill and the High Tech Prayer Breakfast, I became known as the Christian angel investor. It was public information. God used this for his glory as you'll see in the next article.

This series was originally a talk. To listen click here.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.
 


How I Reconciled with God

Sep 2018.jpg

How I Reconciled with God

Charlie Paparelli

Originally this post was published on Charlie Paparelli’s blog as part of an ongoing series called “Reimagine Your Life.” To read the rest of the series, go to paparelli.com and subscribe.

“Why are you holding on to your guilt and resentments?” asked Adolf Coors IVfeatured speaker at the High Tech Prayer Breakfast.

I walked away from God when I was eighteen years old. I did it because religion made me feel guilty all the time. I believed religion and God were one and the same. The people who led the religion had the rules, regulations, and rituals. I learned them. I practiced them. Finally, I rejected them. I was free. On my own and doing what I believed was right and wrong. Setting my own course and practicing my own behaviors.

But there was a problem.

I couldn’t even meet my own standards of right behavior. Too often, I couldn’t make the right moral choices. This resulted in blaming myself. I couldn’t blame God. He was nowhere to be found in my life. I couldn’t blame religion because I wrote it off as foolishness. I was the only one left to blame.

I hurt people’s feelings. I did things in secret I never wanted to think about, much less talk about. As these situations occurred, I didn’t know what to do with the guilt.

The more guilt I accumulated, the more anxiousness swelled up. It took more and more of my energy to hold these feelings at bay. It was like they were spring loaded, and each year the spring became stronger and stronger. It took increasing effort to suppress it.

I found relief in work and alcohol.

I would bury myself in my work. Focused on doing a positive activity, I would forget about the guilt that consumed me. Take a drink, and these feelings were more easily forgotten. I was better able to cope. But I couldn’t drink and work. One method of coping worked against the other. Good thing drinking was such a big part of the work cultures.

The culture of the companies I was a part of was simple. Work hard. Play hard. So that’s what I did. The result was I became a functioning alcoholic. I also learned that if I could think it sober, I could do it or say it while loaded. This caused more wrong choices which resulted in more guilt and reinforcement of resentments. Which resulted in the need to drink. And the negative cycle continued.

I realized I became a man I didn’t like.

One evening, I saw what I was doing and where it would take me. I wasn’t the man I had envisioned being early in life. I became a man I wouldn’t want to befriend. But I was me, and there was no denying it. I knew I had to get off this path, and that’s why I decided to attend my first AA meeting.

In those rooms listening to those stories, I learned there was hope. There was a different path. Choose to stop drinking one day at a time. Commit to the AA program. I heard them say, “It works if you work it.” I believed it. What choice did I have? So I worked it.

My head began to clear after several months in AA.

That’s when I came face to face with the question, “Who is your higher power?” That’s when God came back into the picture in a more personal way for me. I wasn’t drinking after all this time. Was it because I gave my drinking problem to God? This was the third step in the program. It had to be this decision. I wasn’t able to stop drinking on my own, but now, with God in control, I wasn’t drinking.

Answering this question opened the doors of my life to people I knew who knew God. This led me to the High Tech Prayer Breakfast and other similar events. There I heard successful men speak of their demons of guilt and resentments and how they overcame them. They showed me there was a path to knowing God, and God had made it available to me.

I met these men in the more intimate setting of Bible studies.

In these meetings, I saw who these men were and how they thought and saw life. They shared the decisions they made. I realized I was not unique. They suffered just as I was suffering, but they were different from me now. They had a joy I didn’t have. Life was good. They had a higher purpose. They weren’t stuck in a negative cycle.

After several months of these AA meetings and Bible studies, I was driving to Hilton Head to meet up with Kathy and the kids. It was July of 1993. I was on I-16, which is the most desolate road in all of Georgia. No cars, no exits, and nothing to see but pine trees and white lines.

I popped in the cassette tape Robert Campbell had given me. It contained the speech Adolf Coors IV gave at the businessmen’s breakfast I’d attended the previous year. I heard his story all over again. He ended with an invitation, “Jesus Christ came down from heaven to die for your sins. He loves you that much. He wants you to be in a relationship with Him. Will you accept His gift of forgiveness and reconciliation?”

This was not the first time I’d heard this invitation. In fact, I was asked this question from time to time from various people throughout my adult life. I would say something like, “Leave me alone,” or if I was in a gentler mood, “It is good for you, but I don’t believe that.”

This time was different.

Adolf Coors IV asked, “Why are you holding on to your guilt and resentments? Why are you going on like this without God? Is it working for you?”

Why was I insisting on staying in control of my life?

Look where it had gotten me. I was a man I didn’t want to be. I was stuck, guilty, angry, anxious, and depressed. I gave my alcohol addiction to God, and he took it away. Would he take these feelings away and make me into the man I always wanted to be?

As I think back, I was afraid to commit my life to Jesus Christ. If this didn’t work, what would I do? As long as I did what I was now doing, there was hope that an answer would present itself. I would be magically cured of all these feelings and stinkin’ thinkin.’ But Coors was telling me this was the answer. It was right in front of me.

So right there in the car, traveling well above the speed limit, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. Coors, speaking on the cassette tape, led me in the prayer. “Lord Jesus, I know you love me. I believe you came from heaven to reconcile me to you forever by dying on the cross for my sins. I surrender my life to you. Please take away my sins and remove my guilt. I know I’ll be with you from this day to eternity. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.”

Something happened in that moment.

It was like my dad showed up when I was lost as a child in a crowd. I was safe. It was OK. I knew life would be good again. The sins of the past were lifted from me. The guilt was gone. I was saved. Jesus Christ was now in charge.

I knew the first place I needed to go was to church. I once saw one in Hilton Head. It had a garden with a reflecting pool. I wanted to pray. I wanted to thank God and process what had just happened. So that’s what I did.

Then I went on to see Kathy and the kids. I said nothing to them about what had just happened.

Charlie Paparelli is president of High Tech Ministries, angel investor and blogger. Twice each week email subscribers to his blog receive his thoughts on being a successful entrepreneur and Christian leader.