Mike Kai
12 min read ⭑
“The secular and sacred are inseparable. In life, at work, or through play, I can always pray and communicate with Jesus.”
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There's much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
Lisa, my wife of 27 years, is a great cook, but I have to give the nod to my favorite meal combination that my mom will make for me. It's a Filipino dish (my mom is part Filipino and part Italian), and it's called Chicken Sabao. It's a stewed chicken dish with green papaya, potatoes, tomatoes, ginger, chicken stock, and fish sauce. The second dish is Fried Akule. Akule is a fish common in Hawaiian waters (my dad's family is Hawaiian).
These two dishes "take me home" since I have lived on the island of O'ahu for the longest time but was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawai'i. They bring to my mind fond memories of my multi-ethnic, humble beginnings when I spent most of my time as a child with my maternal grandparents, who were immigrants from the Philippines.
Before every high school basketball game, my beautiful and loving Grandma Patsy would make me my "pre-game meal.” I would always tease her that I was her favorite grandchild (out of five at the time), and with a wink, she would always say to me, "Oh, Michael. You know I don't have any favorites." But deep in my heart, I knew that I was her favorite and I always reminded her of it, even into my mid-20s before her passing and graduation into heaven. She was the first family member I led to Christ after my salvation at the age of 21.
QUESTION #2: CONFESS
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So, what are yours? What so-called "nonspiritual" activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
My siblings and I are all two years apart. Being the middle child—I had an older brother, a younger sister, and a baby brother—sometimes put me in the best place and sometimes gave me the short end of the stick. When we were in our teenage years, my sister was the only girl, my older brother always got new clothes, and my youngest brother did as well. Although I got a decent amount of clothes before school, I always got things passed down to me from my older brother.
So because I always felt as though there weren’t enough for me, I started working at the age of 12 to earn more money (besides the allowance my parents gave me). I didn't want to overburden my already hard-working parents with any demands. They were amazing providers and did the best they could on the salary of a police officer and hospital administrative assistant. Truly, my upbringing was the best. Yet, I fought for everything up until my 20s. I didn't have to, but I did. I fought to make the basketball and baseball teams and not get cut, which still happened sometimes because I was smaller than the other guys.
I wanted the cool Nikes and Adidas in the 1980s so I would be popular and the guys would respect me and the girls might like me. So I worked outside of school and practices to make some money. I pumped gas, worked at the grocery store, delivered newspapers, babysat (hated that), washed cars, mowed lawns—all for the finer things in life. But it built a work ethic and character in me that I have to this day. I know how to rest and play, but I also know how to grind it out and do multiple things.
Maybe that explains me being an Enneagram 8, the Challenger, which also has its own challenges. So what's my kryptonite? It's easy to say and hard to admit: It's that I can sometimes be sensitive. There's a little boy inside me that wants to be accepted, wants everybody to love Mike Kai, and doesn't want to let anybody down. There, I said it. Okay, I feel fine now!
QUESTION #3: FIRE UP
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We're just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So, what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
The primary thing I'm called to is pastor an amazing church in Hawai'i called Inspire Church. It's such an amazing and vibrant place. People do their best to love God and live their lives for him. They love the Word and worship. I'm so proud of what we've been able to do for the past 20 years. If you ever visited, you would understand why it's called Inspire. The Greek word for "inspire" means "breath of God." Nice, right?
Second, I help business people find solutions to the challenges they face when scaling their businesses. I also mentor them to keep their practices consistent with their faith. This really gets me excited. When Lisa and I started Inspire Church almost 20 years ago, I never imagined I would be doing this. But after all the campuses we started, leaders we trained and sent out, businesses we launched, it just made sense.
Third, I lead two different types of networks: one for pastors from all over Hawai'i and Asia (Japan, Philippines, Nepal, Thailand) and network for business leaders. Right now, I'm working on the newest network we started for the marketplace. It's called the Inspire Collective. I want to encourage and equip everyone who isn't called to pastoral ministry or missions (in the traditional sense) and help inspire the 99% of Christ-followers who work in business, government, education, the tech industry, hospitality, medicine, the military, and so on. My goal is to help them understand that they are called to that sphere of influence. When we see that we are called to be "a flight attendant for Jesus" or a "contractor for Jesus," then we approach our work from a perspective that God is using us right here in this company and that we can make a difference for Christ. So with the collective, I've teamed up with Dr. Sam Chand and Martijn Van Tilborgh to create this amazing space with book publishing, premium events, yearly membership, and a first-rate quarterly magazine. It's worth a look at inspirecollective.com. If anyone would like their first year of the magazine free, go to the website and sign up. I love it. My mentor, John Maxwell, told me that he read it from top to bottom and thought it was done with great quality.
That's what's hot right now, and that’s what has me the most excited.
QUESTION #4: BOOST
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
God is interested in every detail of our lives—mine and yours. So that means I have to invite him into all that I do. However, it doesn’t mean I have to pray in front of my employees or co-workers to prove that (for those who don't work for a ministry). Yet we can always acknowledge him in our hearts when we do our work. In The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence would say that he saw his work as worship. And that worship wasn't a place he went to, but a place that he worked from. Think about that for a moment.
For me to stay fresh and creative, I found that several things have to be working well simultaneously. My sleep and rest, my diet, my pace, my quiet time, and my play. First, I have to sleep well. And get enough of it. So screens are off one hour before I go to bed. I try to go to sleep as early as I can and wake up by 6 a.m. My room has to be dark and cool. I wear a special mouthpiece so that I don't snore and keep my wife up, but it also helps me to breathe well so that my sleep is restful.
Next is my diet. I've gone gluten-free (because it was messing with my moods) for the past 10 years, and I’m trying to eliminate sugars. I'm not crazy strict on it, but I can tell you exactly when I add sugar to my day and how much, if any. I rarely drink soda, but I love coffee and should drink more water. Oh, and I take a lot of supplements to fight off viruses.
Third, my pace. I have a fast-paced life because of all the irons in the fire, but I work long and hard so that I can enjoy my days off. My first day off is to replenish. Since I preach hard, I need to rest well. If I can squeeze in a second day off, it's for recreation. Beach, bikes, surfing, or basketball.
That second day off plays into my fourth discipline, and that's to play. I love to ride my bike to the beach, run in the water, and swim. It's a nine-mile round trip, and when I get home in about an hour and 10 minutes, I feel so good and ready for work again. I lift weights two to three times a week, but I love basketball more than all the above.
Next, and most importantly, I have to read my Bible and do my devotions. If I do this, then everything else is icing on the cake. Finally, I pray. I find quiet time every day to pray, but I also pray when I work, when I play, as I write, and when I chill. I just talk to God. Sometimes it'll be more formal and fervent, depending on who I know needs it, where I'm at that week, and how connected I feel. But most of the time, I'm talking to him in my thoughts.
I don't have a special place in the forest or at the beach to get creative. For my rhythm, I have found that if I have all these aspects working, the Holy Spirit flows through. That’s when I get into a zone where my ideas and creativity for writing, leading, and offering leadership are at their best.
QUESTION #5: INSPIRE
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?
Without knowing what the next question was, I answered most of it on the previous page. But for the sake of expounding, let me offer a little bit more.
Like any relationship I have on earth, love is spelled with these four letters: T-I-M-E.
Time well spent with God and hearing from the Holy Spirit often looks like worship and listening to worship music, spending time in his Word with my daily devotional routine, and having a conversation in my thoughts with him. Going back to Brother Lawrence, if I practice God’s presence in my daily life and all things—work, play, business, and relationships—then I don’t turn it off and on. I try to stay “on” as much as possible.
When I was a lot younger, I got hired by a major airline to work as a baggage handler on the ramp at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. One of the benefits of working for the airlines was flight privileges, which I used to fly to another island to see my family. When my vacation family time ended and I needed to fly back to Honolulu, one flight after another was canceled and I found myself stuck at the airport. But next to me was another employee of the same airline, and we struck up a conversation. Inevitably, it led to me asking her what she did for a living with the airline. She said, “Oh, I’m a flight attendant,” to which I replied, “Wow, That sounds like a lot of fun. I wish I were a pilot or flight attendant, flying all around the world, meeting new people, seeing new places.” I was envious.
Then she asked me what I did. “Oh, I just work on the ramp.” Knowing that I was a believer—and she was a believer, too—she made a statement I will never forget. (Perhaps it was because she could detect how I downplayed what I did for work.) She said, “No, you don’t just work on the ramp. You work on the ramp for Jesus!” I thought, Wait, what? Wow! I had never viewed it that way. I didn’t realize there was a purpose behind my paycheck. To some extent, I had been separating the secular from the sacred.
That huge lesson almost 30 years ago has lived with me to today. The secular and sacred are inseparable. In life, at work, or through play, I can always pray and communicate with Jesus.
QUESTION #6: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are some resources that have impacted you?
John Maxwell’s work. I can't pinpoint a book, but I do get to call him and ask him for advice on leadership. The Maxwell Leadership Bible, NKJV is my favorite leadership Bible to glean from. There are so many lessons in there. It's as if he took the best lessons from all the books he has written in the past 30 years and stuffed them into the bible. I couldn’t even take it with me on vacation because it's so thick and heavy!
Podcasts: Pastor Phil Pringle’s C3 Church Global. I love his Aussie accent and his Spirit-led approach to life and ministry. He's the founder of the C3 Church Global Movement. The best!
Series: The Last Dance on Netflix. I know it's not so spiritual, but it has a lot of leadership lessons in it. It's about the Chicago Bulls’ run with Michael Jordan. I’m a basketball fan, so I was thrilled when it came out during the pandemic. I must have watched the entire series at least eight times. My wife doesn’t let me forget it! Lisa always loves to make fun and says I have a man-crush on Michael Jordan. Not true!
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it's done for you.
In this current season, I have to say that it has been worship music. I am musically inclined. My mother raised us all on lots of black vinyl records when we were kids. Music moves me. Music adds to any movie. Show me a scene from The Notebook without music, and there will be no tears. But add music to some of those scenes, and I'm crying... ugly crying.
When this crazy pandemic hit in March 2020, there was one resource I felt emerged at the perfect time—Maverick City Music. They released their debut album, Maverick City Vol. 3 Part 1, in April 2020. The worship music in that album was exactly what I needed. It was my “Emergency Kit Worship,” my “Break This Glass in Case of Emergency Praise.”
QUESTION #7: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Honestly, it's the Inspire Collective that we started. The church I lead is a massive responsibility, and we have great influence in the State of Hawaii. But from a global perspective, what takes an equal amount of energy is what I put into the Collective. I love to see people from every sphere of society, from every vocation and profession, and from all walks of life fulfilling their God-given potential wherever they derive their income from. I believe that when we understand that each of us is called by God at this moment to be influencers where we are and to reach more people for Jesus, we will find great satisfaction and contentment. We are "on assignment." We're not going to win this world through politics. It doesn't really matter who is in the White House, although it does help. Wherever we are on the political spectrum, I believe we can all agree that, as believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to be salt and light everywhere we go. Everywhere. That makes me go to bed content and wakes me up. I don't need an alarm clock. I wake up with anticipation of the next day. Before I go to bed, I tell myself that the next day will be the greatest. Anticipation is my alarm clock.
When was the last time you were consciously aware of God’s presence at work? Isn’t it interesting that it’s so easy to acknowledge his nearness at church or during devotions, but it’s much harder to do so during our normal day-to-day tasks?
The truth, though, is that Jesus is just as close when we’re reading the Bible as when we’re working in our cubicles, leading a business meeting, or networking with a client. As Mike puts it, “You work for Jesus!”
Today, we hope you can find fresh joy in what you do, knowing it’s for God and that he’s with you.
Mike Kai is co-founder of the Inspire Collective, which equips business leaders and executives globally, and pastor of Inspire Church, a thriving, multi-site church in Hawai’i that reaches thousands for Jesus. Mike is also the prolific author of The Pound for Pound Principle, Plateaus, and his latest book, That Doesn’t Just Happen: How Excellence Accelerates Everything. He and his wife, Lisa, reside in Honolulu and are the proud parents of three daughters and grandparents of two grandchildren. Learn more about Mike at mikekai.tv.