CFW’s Inaugural
Entrepreneur-
in-Residence

By Dave Evans

Greetings Redeemer! What a joy it is to co-labor with you as your inaugural “Entrepreneur in Residence” at CFW.

My journey started 40 years ago as a Stanford undergrad struggling to discern what God wanted me to do with my life. What did faith have to do with work? What was God’s perspective on engineering or business? I had no clue. I was lost and found little help in these days long before there was a CFW. 

Eventually I found my way to a career in Silicon Valley at Apple, Electronic Arts and various startups and enterprise technology firms, but I never stopped learning and teaching about discerning God’s call. The partnership with CFW began by meeting Katherine Leary (Alsdorf) when she was a Silicon Valley CEO. So of course I was thrilled when she went to Redeemer to start CFW.

I also stayed engaged with collegians, getting invited to teach at UC Berkeley in 1999 then at Stanford in 2007. I help students discern their calling by teaching design principles applied to “designing your life” in a way that students of any convictions can embrace. Over nine years, we’ve developed Designing Your Life into one of the most popular electives at Stanford and now have a book coming out in September.

I have long appreciated how CFW has ministered to all of New York through supporting cultural renewal and meaningful work. We’re offering renewal to the greater RPC community with the Refresh retreat June 3-4, focusing on renewing spiritual rhythms. We’re advancing the mission of CFW with our Faith & Work 2.0 experiment – collaborating with a group of Gotham Fellowship Alumni to address “what’s next?” for CFW as it strives to nurture lives that fully integrate the inseparable elements of faith and vocation. Finally, for the city at large, CFW is hosting a Designing Your Life workshop on June 11.

My wife Claudia and I are so glad for the chance to be here.  What a great city, what a great church!