Allen Brokken of Towers of Light

National Religious Broadcasters Convention 2024

Transcription completed by AI software, please excuse any misspellings or typos present.

Leray Heyne 0:24  

Hello, I'm Leray Heyne, the founder of Windows of Heaven and our Jesus Christ’s CEOs ministries. Today I'm here at the Museum of the Bible, an amazing tribute to the Holy Bible. Teresa and I are honored to be founding members of the Museum of the Bible. And I'm here to encourage Christian business owners to enroll in our Jesus Christ’s CEOs Bible Institute. When you visit the Museum of the Bible, you will get to view biblical artifacts you will not get to see anywhere else. It is the same when you enroll in our Jesus Christ’s CEOs Bible Institute. As a Christian business owner, you will learn things you have not and will not learn anywhere else as it relates to your holy calling as a Christian business owner. The Museum of the Bible is all about the Holy Bible. Jesus Christ’s CEOs habitually abide in the Holy Bible with their body, heart, mind, soul and spirit, business owners that are ready to do the same. Enroll today in our Jesus Christ Bible Institute. And together as authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, let's transform the nation's public squares of business with the Holy Bible as our manual for life and our company's.

Leray Heyne  1:30  

Welcome back to the NRB National Religious Broadcasting Convention and exhibit in Nashville, Tennessee. We are Jesus Christ's CEOs TV and we are here on the floor, introducing our new virtual reality sets. And we are grabbing some people off the floor that we think can add value to what Jesus is doing in business. And our team has grabbed Allen Brokken. 

Allen Brokken  2:04  

Yeah, Allen Brokken. 

Leray Heyne  2:06  

Thank you for showing up and letting us have a little conversation here. 

Allen Brokken  2:09  

No, I think it's really cool. I love the set. Looks pretty awesome.

Leray Heyne  2:12  

Thank you. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about you. And we'll get deep into your story here. 

Allen Brokken  2:19  

Sure. So I'm the CEO of Towers of Light Christian Resources. We provide educational materials for kids, home schools, private schools, things like that. But we also have fantastic storytelling. And our main goal is to really improve practical literacy, because that's the gateway to biblical literacy. And then in addition to that, that's kind of my kingdom business. It's what I run on the side I'm not, but we also have my my day job, I work in big tech and sales. 

Leray Heyne  2:44  

So I want to come back to your business. First, you are telling me a story about your children. And in reading Alyssa, because I asked you so well, how's the Lord been using this business to affect you? And I can tell you got a little emotional when you told that story? 

Allen Brokken  2:58  

Yeah. So, you know, early on in my business career when I was traveling for work, again, big tech, I was separated from my family a ton. And it was just tough. He call home and they say, Daddy, what do you do today? And I would be like, at nothing, like, just work was hard. And so one day I said to my son, you know, he was telling me about Sparco frog, his little stuffed animal. And I said to him, hey, well, and then what happened? He told me a story. And he kept telling me a story. I kept, I had four words, I could say, and then what happened? And we had a conversation. And then one day, he said, But Daddy, you tell me what happened. Now I'm stuck because I don't have a story for my son. So we spent a little bit of time and after a little bit, I decided during my devotional time in the morning, I'd start to write stories. Oh, wonderful. Write write this story about stop sparkle frog to start out with, then I had to bring in the other stuffed animals because my other kids were jealous. And so you get meow meow and daddy duck and, and it all turns into a story. And I have some books. 

Leray Heyne  3:52  

Right. 

Allen Brokken  3:53  

And so you know, we're a homeschooling family. I'd written some books for my homeschooling family and other families were like, well, that sounds like a cool story. I'd like to read it. Yeah. So we published some books. And again, this is kind of my own business on the side. And then then I had some people say, Well, could you make that curriculum for me? Could you could you make that like a language arts program? 

Leray Heyne  4:11  

Right. 

Allen Brokken  4:11  

So we added that on and then it was like, well, you know, my own son was having challenges reading. And so what what do we do about that? Well, we learned that if the you follow along the page while you hear someone read it to you, if you read while listening, you're you learn faster, like you learn how to read. And so after about two years of that for him, we were able to get him over that and he can read just fine. And he's off in college now. 

Leray Heyne  4:33  

So you created audio versions. 

Allen Brokken  4:34  

And absolutely, that's what we did. We created audio versions to go with the content. And now we have a whole system where you can basically accelerate your child's reading. And it's really important right now, because a lot of kids are behind like something like 70% of kids in fourth eighth grade today are behind on reading.

Leray Heyne  4:48  

Right? Right. So now and you call this a kingdom business that right so this is the business that you have you all and you're the CEO of this business, and this is how you're serving the Lord by serving his children. 

Allen Brokken  4:59  

Yeah, so so it's something that we, we work with other ministry organizations, other other things to help source them, right. So whether you're like a Christian homeschool Co Op or a Christian, private school, that kind of thing, we come in and help you with the curriculum, because it is a faith based curriculum, right. But also, we just find solutions for people. I have a lot of authors that would maybe want to do the same thing. And so we find ways to help them. But it is a business right? In the end, it's got a it's got to make a profit. It's got to be got to be functional, right? But but it's definitely dedicated to the Lord and to basically proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ.

Leray Heyne  5:33  

Yeah, amen. Amen. So I love that. But I want to get to this next piece, because you just told me something off camera that I want people to hear, especially Christians who work for other company owners, whether they're Christian or not. You serve the Lord in another capacity in the marketplace. And what how do you serve the Lord? In this other company? 

Allen Brokken  5:57  

Yeah. So So I work for big tech company as a go to market strategist. I've worked on large scale sales programs and things like that. And but I'm also fairly open about my faith, like no other business that I do. I mean, I take, you know, appropriate time off of work to do what I do prior. There's no, you know, from an integrity perspective, I'm I'm honoring my, that master, so to speak.

Leray Heyne  6:19  

Right. But if you shared if you shared who the company was, most Christians would think that you wouldn't be allowed to share your faith in that company.

Allen Brokken  6:25  

Yes, right. Yeah. And, and to a certain extent, maybe that's true. But it comes back to LinkedIn as my platform, right? Like my LinkedIn accounts, my LinkedIn account, right, so So I just is happy to share that I was on this interview, as I am to share a product announcement for my company, because it's that's my social network. 

Leray Heyne  6:43  

Right. 

Allen Brokken  6:43  

And and what I've been surprised is how much feedback I get on LinkedIn, from other Christians that their faith has been encouraged by what I had to say.

Leray Heyne  6:52  

Oh, that's awesome. 

Allen Brokken  6:53  

So you know, in our talk earlier, you asked me, how is God showing you something you notice, right and and, like one of my, one of the most followed videos I had, I talked about reaping and sowing. And it was that I had gone off again, taking time off of my day job to go do do you know, Towers of Light.

Leray Heyne  7:10  

Yep. 

Allen Brokken  7:11  

And I was in the middle of nowhere, Iowa doing a book tour, and nobody was showing up. Well, they didn't know me, right? Like, why would they show up. But I was taken by there were all these harvesters, harvesting the grain. And what God told me in that is, you can't reap where you haven't sown. Right, like, like, at the end of the day, if it wasn't sown, you can't reap it. So. So at the time, you know, I had one day where like, literally two people came in the store the whole day I was there and, you know, no real sales or whatever. But three, four months later, I get an email from a lady and saying how much he enjoyed the books, he gone and bought it later, and all that. So I think that's one of the encouragement, I got so much feedback from both, you know, my Christian peers at work, or Christians in my network, as I did from non Christians about, thank you for that reminder, that not everything's gonna work out. But we still need to sow because you can't reap a harvest that you haven't sown.

Leray Heyne  8:04  

Right? So let's, let's do another one. How has God so our whole network is all about telling the world what Jesus is doing in business and what you're here at Allen is what Jesus is doing a business, whether it's his Christian kingdom company, or whether you're working for this secular high tech company. So as you live out your faith in this high tech world, give us some examples of how it's encouraged those people.

Allen Brokken  8:31  

Well, so one of the things that really kind of threw me is just the way that that, you know, I've had some some people on my team that just were struggling, you know, for for whatever reason, family issues, you know, COVID really wrecked a lot of people's family life and other stuff and, and just saying, hey, you know, what is it alright, if I pray with you? Yeah, they're, they're a believer, not just just saying, look, you know, they know, they know, I'm a person of faith. They know that I believe in God, because I I'm pretty transparent about it. But I've just been surprised at at the reception to me offering that right. Yeah, just because it's like, well, maybe I don't believe what you do, Allen, but I sure appreciate your prayers. 

Leray Heyne  9:05  

Yeah, yeah. Well, that is awesome. Well, I'm glad to you. Sit down with me to share your story. I know you are going to encourage business owners all over the world.