Alumni Feature: Jordan Fischer (Business ’05)
“King’s does a great job preparing you to be influencers in this world," Jordan says. "My advice is to remember that only God, through His Spirit, can prepare your heart and this is a life-long journey.”
“God has a pattern of doing deep soul work in individuals before sending them out,” says Jordan Fischer (Business ’05). “Think Jesus in the desert, Joseph in prison, Paul isolated for three years after meeting Jesus, and so many others throughout the Bible. Stay close to Him. Lean in as He puts His finger on the shadows in your soul.”
Jordan started at King’s before there was a House system, but now is an honorary member of the House of C.S. Lewis. In 2014, he and his wife Katie (Childhood Education ’06), founded Hope In Our City (HIOC), based in Denver, Colo., a ministry that focuses on refugee communities. “We build relationships with refugees to foster healthy community in Denver and make generational impact,” Fischer says. And relationships are key: “Through friendships, all other needs come into clearer view.”
Jordan and Katie also run Fischer Investments (founded in 2007) as a side business and as a source of enough income so that Katie can be at home with their four children. “We have fixed up and flipped houses, and also fixed and rented some.”
Jordan’s facility with funds informs his role as CEO of Hope In Our City, where he oversees all the finances and fundraising, as well as administration of programs and the company overall. Again, he emphasizes the priority of relationships.
“My work with HIOC is all community interaction, both with the over three hundred clients we serve as well as the over five hundred volunteers who have partnered with us.” The Fischer family is rooted in the Denver community at large as well, where they attend Fellowship Denver. Katie, a Colorado native, still has extended family in the Denver area, and the Fischer children go to Denver schools and play hockey, lacrosse, and football.
Jordan’s experience at King’s shaped his passion for thriving communities. He was raised in Nokesville, Va., a “one-stoplight town,” and the move to New York City was a huge leap, he says. King’s taught him “to have a heart for the world, and the city.” Interacting with and building friendships with people from the city and some from other parts of the world, and studying business with King’s faculty formed the basis for his current work in both the nonprofit and for-profit world. King’s professors “challenged the way I think about cultures, people, success, and God’s heart so that I could see that all people matter, and that I can learn from all experiences and individuals.”
In the city, he met people who looked, thought, worshiped, and believed differently from him. “I discovered that I didn’t know everything, and that my way isn’t always right or best.” King’s encouraged him “to seek truth and not be afraid of the process. One of the biggest things that has influenced me is that God loves all people.”
Jordan believes that St. Augustine’s prayer, “Lord, let me know myself; let me know You,” is at the heart of human flourishing. God’s continual shaping and refining of Jordan himself has led him to believe that “in order to flourish in a truly impactful way that is glorifying to God, we are cut back and pruned.” We need to understand our own weaknesses before we can grow. “This is not just from a cognitive stance, but an emotional and spiritual position too. I believe that God understands my needs in every way better than I do. He wants to grow me by causing me to lean into Him through exposing doubts, weakness, and darkness in me.”
Jordan cites Jesus’s saying in Mark 8:36: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” In whatever professions we pursue, high or humble, we can be tempted to gain the world for the price of our souls. But to know oneself and one’s own shortcomings is not enough: “Knowing myself leaves an emptiness that can only be overcome with experiencing God and His great love.”
The more we live in God’s love, the more alive we are. For Jordan, “human flourishing involves getting better at being more alive each day,” and this means “to be aware of reality in me and around me.” Awareness of reality leads to honesty with ourselves, and pruning makes possible further flourishing. This isn’t the kind of “good life” valued by the world, but rather the kind that prepares us for the kingdom for God—“the most important type of flourishing” there is.
“King’s does a great job preparing you to be influencers in this world,” says Jordan. “My advice is to remember that only God, through His Spirit, can prepare your heart and this is a life-long journey.”