Creating a Business Ministry

By Steve D’Annunzio

I believed business and ministry occupied separate domains. It was 1994, and at the time, I was a part-time spiritual teacher at Unity Church in Rochester, New York, filling in when the full-time pastor was sick or on vacation. Eventually, she was called back home, and I found myself teaching Sundays for nearly a full year until a permanent pastor was found. Even then, I unconsciously siloed my intentions. Ministry felt spiritual and sacred. Business felt practical, competitive, and transactional. I treated them as two different worlds, each governed by different rules.

Until I was teaching one Sunday, and came across a profoundly simple verse that would eventually dismantle, and heal that division:

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
— Matthew 6:22

The single eye is often mistaken for moral focus or religious devotion, but at a deeper level it points to something far more revealing; alignment of beliefs and behavior. It revealed something disturbing about myself I hadn’t before seen── a fragmentation of values, behaving one way in a spiritual setting while operating by entirely different values in business, family, or social life. I realized the issue wasn’t situational…it was internal. Different contexts were activating different versions of me. I further realized that in some situations, I was performing…but that implied an ‘act.’  Uh-oh. I didn’t want to play a ‘role’ anymore, I wanted to know, and be, my true self.

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
— John 8:32

In the original Greek, truth (alētheia) means that which is unconcealed or brought into the light. It doesn’t imply the memorization of correct ideas, but about seeing reality clearly—without distortion, fear, or self-deception. It was time to shine the light into a deeper truth…to drop the personas, and really discover who I was, my authentic self.

That realization initiated a deliberate process of alignment. I began intentionally engaging spiritual principles not just on Sundays, but in my family life, business life, personal life, and even my social life. As those lines dissolved, something unexpected happened. Decisions simplified, relationships deepened, referrals flowed more steadily and our business grew by leaps and bounds. I experienced a state of being, referred to in non-duality (Advaita Vedanta), as unity consciousness—not as an idea, but as a lived experience where the same values guided my words, actions, and intentions everywhere I went. At a deeper level, unity consciousness carries an even more radical realization: there is no true separation between Self and other. A single-eyed consciousness knows this intuitively—everything I do to you, I do to myself, and everything I do for you, I do for myself. Service is no longer seen as sacrifice, but is actually enlightened Self-interest. This is where spirituality quietly meets science.

Modern neuroscience and psychophysiology describe a phenomenon known as heart coherence. When one person is genuinely present, regulated, and oriented toward the well-being of another, the heart rhythms of both individuals begin to synchronize. There is measurable alignment between nervous systems. Defensiveness drops, trust rises and relationships grow in flow. The body recognizes safety before the mind ever reasons its way there. In other words, unity consciousness produces physiological coherence. When someone feels—at a bodily, emotional level—that you are truly putting their interests first, their heart aligns with yours. In that state of coherence, trust is not negotiated or persuaded; it is felt. Their system knows the interaction is in their highest good. This is not only a spiritual principle; it is a science. And it explains why Jesus said the single eye fills the whole body with light. The body responds to unity faster than belief ever could.

This understanding also reframes ministry. The word ministry comes from the Latin minister, meaning servant, rooted in minus, meaning less. To minister was to place oneself lower in order to serve another. But ministry is more than a posture or a role. It is a state of consciousness.

When mammals operate from fear and scarcity, the brain defaults to the survival centers—the limbic system. From there arise domination, manipulation, and what I call cold seduction: controlling outcomes, protecting self-interest, extracting value. But when a human consciously chooses to put the other first, the brain shifts into the frontal cortex—the seat of awareness, empathy, intentionality, and choice. We are no longer trying to win. We are choosing to co-create.

That is the difference between domination and ministry. Between selling and serving. Between fear-based influence and love-driven leadership. Over the past 25 years, I’ve seen this play out in very real, measurable ways.

My client and colleague Braden Dragoo, a financial advisor at New York Life, deeply resonated with these concepts in our private calls, even hiring our team to speak at his events for his own clients. He decided to implement, and test this principle. Already a top producer, he chose to remember God, choose love, and consciously create value. I use the acronym L.O.V.E. to mean Leaving Others Valuable Experiences. Braden committed to that fully. In every client meeting, he put the client first—not strategically, but sincerely. He asked what they wanted, what mattered most, and what they hoped to accomplish. He listened without steering, pressure, or hidden agendas. He became, in the truest sense of the word, a minister—placing himself in service. As trust deepened, something remarkable happened. Clients opened up—not because they were persuaded, but because they felt safe. Heart coherence was happening. And within that field of trust, clients naturally became willing to explore strategies that genuinely served their long-term interests. The result? Braden became the number one agent at New York Life, out of more than 12,000 advisors nationwide. He attributes this not to tactics or hustle, but to remembering God, choosing love, and leaving others valuable experiences. In simple terms: Dollars followed value.

Jesus describes this principle in spiritual language:

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant… thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.”
— Matthew 25:21

This is not a transactional promise. It is a law of alignment. Those who serve from unity consciousness—who understand that serving the other is serving the self—are entrusted with greater influence, responsibility, and abundance.

This truth is not confined to Christianity. Every wisdom tradition points to it in its own way: non-separation, right action, compassion, coherence, alignment. Whether it is called light, awareness, Logos, Dharma, Tao, or divine intelligence, the pattern is universal.

When consciousness is unified, systems harmonize.
When systems harmonize, trust emerges.
When trust emerges, value flows.
When value flows, abundance follows.

Creating a business ministry is the conscious choice to put the other first—not as sacrifice, but as wisdom. And when that happens, business stops being a place of competition and becomes a place of coherence—where prosperity is the cause of value creation and abundance is the effect. We move from transaction to transformation. At the Soul Purpose Institute, it’s why we believe enlightened entrepreneurship is the clearest hope for prosperity and peace worldwide.