Living out Our Faith in Business: 3 Catholic Entrepreneurs Share Their Approach

“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:13-14 and 16).

Do you sometimes feel you are leading two separate lives — one as a Catholic and the other as an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to find ways to naturally blend both worlds and confidently live out your faith? Here, the leaders of three businesses share how they have successfully shared their Catholic values with customers through their business:

Sabrina Wujek: Sharing the Faith and Supporting Ministry

Sabrina Wujek is an architect specializing in health care architecture by day and owner/designer of handmade Marian garden-inspired earrings by night. She started her business, Eardrop Co., in 2019 out of a desire to share her faith in a creative, natural way.

“The large idea behind Eardrop Co. was, how can I create a Catholic business without it screaming, ‘Catholic’? I wanted it to cater to everyone but have a subtle Catholic underlying message that would spread the Catholic faith without turning anyone away,” says Wujek.

Her earrings are handmade modern floral designs and are packaged as a themed collection with a prayer or Catholic quote. The pieces are designed to be conversation-starters to help women open up about their faith when others compliment their jewelry.

Another extension of Wujek’s business is charity. Since its inception, Eardrop Co. has donated a percentage of its profits to charity. In 2019, she posted an announcement on Instagram that the first charity would be the Philadelphia chapter of the Sisters of Life. It was an organization she volunteered with, and she admired their work with mothers in crisis pregnancies. The post led an entire family to purchase her earrings and wear them to their daughter’s first vows ceremony to become a Sister of Life.

Wujek’s encouragement from her customers motivates her to continue to evangelize through Eardrop Co. and bless charities through her work. In December, she posted her 2021 donation plan on Eardrop Co.’s Instagram page. The new plan highlights the six Corporal Works of Mercy and charities for each month.

“So many of my friends and family and co-workers in my architecture profession now know about my faith more so than before. I’ve become braver to be who I am. This is a way to allow me to do it now,” says Wujek. “If my business doesn’t profit, then I know that I’ve been blessed to evangelize to others and bless others with the donations we’ve raised.”

Ashley Mikkelsen: Starting a Conversation

Ashley Mikkelsen creates resources, lesson plans, activities, and assessments for Spanish teachers through her business, Señorita Spanish. Her resources are generally for novice learners and secondary students in middle and high school. Her Instagram page, @srta_spanish, has a large following, where she also shares elements of her Catholic journey as a wife and mother.

She has been in business for five years and uses her Instagram and email newsletter as tools to open conversations about her faith journey.

“It’s important to me to share my faith, because it’s part of who I am, especially on social media and in my email list when I’m talking with my audience,” says Mikkelsen. “When I share about who I am in my journey, in my teaching, in my classroom, my faith is just a part of that journey. So, when I share about a particularly difficult day or a particularly wonderful lesson, God is present in those moments, so I make sure that I’m not censoring Him out of those moments.”

Mikkelsen continues, “It would be easy to tweak my language and change what I’m saying with my audience to make it seem like it’s not such a big part of who I am. But since it is, I want to make sure that I’m being authentic and share that part of my journey with people by opening up to how God has changed my journey in the classroom and how he’s changed my life as an educator.”

Some parts of the journey she’s shared with her audience are cultural celebrations like Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1 that coincides with the Catholic Church’s All Souls Day. Mikkelsen has also invited her Instagram audience to join her in praying each day of the Surrender novena.

“The experiences that I’ve had, every time I’m sharing anything about my faith, have reinforced that it’s OK to keep doing this,” says Mikkelsen. “I’m not doing any harm by sharing my perspective. I’m opening the door to these conversations.”

Jay and Angie Ross: Depicting the Sacredness of Marriage

Jay and Angie Ross are the husband-and-wife team behind 31Four Artisan Jewelry. They are converts to the Catholic faith and artists. Previously their business specialized in Marian jewelry, but it soon evolved into wedding rings due to growing requests for wedding rings. Their Catholic perspective on the sacredness of marriage is expressed in the symbolism of the rings they craft for couples.

“There’s a long tradition of the art of casting and the art of jewelry in Scripture, and we wanted to point it out,” says Angie. “So, our name is a reference to Exodus 31:4. We’re inspired by that and wanted to point back to that long tradition of this in our faith.”

Jay adds, "It was a consecration to Mary that originally led towards the first incarnation of our first business, Totally Yours Jewelry. We wanted to [share] that consecration. Having a background in jewelry gave me that language, and I noticed there was no way to express that particular thought.”

“On several occasions,” he continues, “we were asked if we made wedding rings. It was then revealed that there was something way more important ... than just the business in the sacredness of wedding rings, what it means to make a wedding ring, how important it is to represent marriage, and then how important a wedding ring should be after its [creation]. So, our faith is being represented, because our faith is made manifest in our business every day.”

31Four has been in business for three years. The Rosses collaborate on the design process, while Jay does all the fabricating in their studio. He regularly shares his process on their Instagram business page, where they also post about their Catholic faith and how God is the ultimate creator.

“For us, our faith is the center of who we are individually and as a couple,” said Angie. “It’s a natural extension of that love for our faith: foremost a love for God and just the expansiveness and majesty of God. We’re both converts to the faith, so we are always learning something new about the beauty of our faith. I think the beauty is so overlooked, and the teachings and the way the Church represents the beauty of God [need] to be shared.”

One primary theme while chatting with these business leaders is that, while they feared rejection in the beginning, most of their experiences in sharing their faith with their customers and clients have been overwhelmingly positive. There is something beautiful in seeing entrepreneurs’ deep love for God shine through the work they do!

Malie Hudson is a freelance B2B content writer and copywriter. She is also a regular contributor to OC Catholic and Inland Catholic Byte in sunny California. You can get in touch with her here.