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The Christian executives who run Charlotte's Dallas 1 Construction send their workers off to replace water and sewer lines in trucks that bear their company slogan: "Serving Christ Through Construction."
In Fort Mill, S.C., the men who wield brushes and rollers at Callahan's Painting advertise its owners' Christian beliefs on their work clothes: "Jesus Saves," read the company shirts, which also feature a drawing of a painter with a bucket in one hand and a Bible in the other.
Such open displays of religiosity can still pay off in the Bible Belt, though they could also offend some in a marketplace that grows more diverse every year.
"Customers will sometimes choose to patronize companies based on (their) stated values," says Denis Arnold, a professor of business ethics at UNC Charlotte. "But customers may also be turned off by companies that proselytize, so this might work against companies that want to serve the entire community."
Christian business owners say spreading the Word is no marketing gimmick. They say they feel a calling to weave their religion into their business. That can mean everything from banning smoking or cursing on the job to paying a chaplain to be available to employees.
It almost always means proclaiming their Christianity on company Web sites, business cards, trucks - even clothing.
"We want Jesus to be exposed," says Scott Callahan Jr., 28, who runs Callahan's Painting during the week and pastors a Pentecostal church on the weekend. "If he's going to be in our everyday walk, he's got to be in our business, too. We take him to work."
Scott Hoffman, operations manager of Dallas 1 Construction, says he and partner Tim Pirc, the company's president, have a four-part vision statement designed to follow Jesus on the job: Promote employees' growth, spiritual and otherwise; do excellent work for customers; pay vendors on time; and give 10 percent of their profit to charity.
"We do construction work, yes. But we're really, first and foremost, a ministry of Jesus Christ...he's the boss," Hoffman, 43, says. "We're working for him."
Discrimination or ethics?
All that sounds fine - as long as the Christian companies respect others' views, notably their employees and customers, UNCC's Arnold says.
"Companies are like people, they have different personalities and different values," he says. "Some companies might espouse secular values, some Christian values, some Jewish values. So long as they do not discriminate in hiring practices, or in who they will serve as customers, there is nothing wrong with that."
Callahan and the managers at Dallas 1 Construction say they have hired non-Christians and non-churchgoers. They say they don't push their faith, though workers know they can get help - with Bible studies, invitations to church - if they want to make a life change.
"If we can get them to Christ, that's what we're going to do," says Callahan, whose company has six employees.
More important than what employees believe, Christians business owners say, is how they do the job - and how they behave at the workplace.
"They have to abide by our core values," says Hoffman, who attends Grace Covenant, a Foursquare Gospel church. "Treat everybody with respect. We don't allow our guys to whistle at women."
He says the company refused to hire one job applicant who said he didn't like Hispanics. "We said, 'You can't work here, Hispanics are part of our work force,'" says Hoffman.
Workers must follow suit
Tony Tennaro, chair of The C12 Group, which serves Charlotte area Christian CEOs and business owners, says Christian companies want the same skill sets as other businesses, but they're also looking for people with values.
"We don't qualify people as Christian or not," he says. "We look for persons of good character and integrity."
Again, says ethicist Arnold, that's OK if that's measured by rules of workplace behavior that respect others' values.
Callahan, who observes the Sabbath on Saturday, says he lets employees off on Sundays if they want to attend church. But when they're on the job, he says, they have to follow rules. One big one: No smoking.
"I don't want to smell it, and my customers don't want to smell it," he says.
That has meant an adjustment for Kevin Snelson, 32, of Rock Hill, who just started working for Callahan.
"Now I'll smoke before I go to work, then put on some cologne (to kill the smell)," he says. "Smoking ain't worth losing my job over."
At Dallas 1 Construction's office/warehouse in north Charlotte, some - but not all - of the 21 employees show up for 6:30 a.m. prayers. Every Monday, the managers cook breakfast for those workers who attend a Bible study. Again, participation is voluntary, they say.
Faith is voluntary
Ditto on the weekly Bible memory verse contest. The crew that can remember the most gets a pizza party.
And Hoffman and Pirc have hired a chaplain to visit employees in the hospital, pray with them, or offer counseling.
Chris Howie, 31, who has been with Dallas 1 for six years, says the chaplain helped him with some family issues.
When he first went to work with the company, he says, "I was drinking every night, and partying. I just didn't care."
Now he says he's a Christian looking for a new church, and credits his bosses for the turnaround.
"Being around Tim and Scott, they got me straightened out," he says. "They were there when I needed to talk."
They were also there, he says, when he needed money for a down payment on a house. They loaned him $1,000, interest-free, and let him pay it off at $50 a week.
"It's been a good company," he says. "They treat you like they'd want to be treated."
Pirc, 47, who attends St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, says Christian companies often get more scrutiny than others because of their claims of morality.
"We get held to a higher standard. That's OK," he says. "We need the accountability."
Companies and business professionals who identify themselves as Christian have multiplied to such a degree that groups have sprouted to support them. The Charlotte Christian Chamber - "Doing the King's Business in the Queen City" - offers chances to network and sponsors monthly luncheon speakers.
Hoffman and Pirc of Dallas 1 Construction are members of The C12 Group, a for-profit organization that gathers Christian CEOs and owners for roundtables that explore how to bring biblical principles to the workplace.
The painting pastor
Callahan, who inherited the painting business from his dad, lives a life set apart from the secular world - except when he goes to work.
He pastors a tiny non-denominational church in Indian Land, S.C., called House of Prayer. His wife, Crystal, home-schools their three children. They don't observe Christmas - "We celebrate the birth of Christ every day," Callahan says - and they mark Passover, not Easter, which he calls "a pagan name."
On the job - which these days is likely to be in Baxter Village in Fort Mill, where his company has painted more than 100 houses - he isn't shy about sharing his faith by what he says and how he works.
Callahan says he's eager to talk about God with customers, but only if they want to. They can tell from the lettering on his shirts and trucks - "Your Local Christian Company" is spelled out on one vehicle - what he believes.
God "requires me to get people to know about him, and what better way? We run into hundreds of people," he says. "But being Christian also helps you treat customers better. You want to do the absolute best job and be accountable."
Both the good work and the talk about Jesus have brought Callahan business.
Jim Swart, a software consultant who's lived in Baxter Village for 10 years, says he hired Callahan based on the job the company did painting a neighbor's house. Being a Christian business "didn't have a bearing," Swart says.
But Zach Jackson, who moved from St. Louis to Baxter to work for Bank of America, is an evangelical Christian whose Realtor recommended Callahan. "My Realtor told me, 'He's a good Christian guy.'"
