In January 2001, Leray Heyne stood at a crossroads that would baffle most graduates of a top-tier business school. He was an award-winning entrepreneur who had built a multimillion-dollar empire, yet he found himself making a covenant that would dismantle his life as he knew it.
“Time is precious, Lord,” Heyne prayed. “The Lord’s work is much. I won’t spend my time doing any other business that isn’t the work of the Lord.”
Twenty-five years later, Heyne is no longer selling gourmet snacks. Instead, he is the founder of Windows of Heaven and its ministry, Jesus Christ’s CEOs, rooted in the belief that the marketplace provides access to a sphere of influence the traditional church often cannot reach.
Before he was a spiritual mentor to business leaders, Heyne was living the quintessential American dream. He was the CEO of Enjoy Foods International, a family business he helped build into a powerhouse.
“We made over 150,000 pounds a week of meat into beef jerky with 250 employees, 24 hours a day, six days a week,” Heyne recalls. The company was an industry innovator, becoming the first to take an all-natural product mainstream in the 1980s.
Yet, beneath the surface of commercial success, a spiritual crisis was brewing. Heyne admits that while he was running a “Christian company,” he wasn’t running it as a Christian company.
“I was building a Kingdom unto myself,” Heyne says. “I discovered many years later I was an abomination.”
The turning point came through the prayers of his business partners: his mom and dad. Observing that success was “creating a monster” rather than a man of God, they prayed a bold prayer: “Lord, do whatever it takes to bring Leray into a personal relationship with Youu.”
God answered. A seven-year humbling process led to the closure of the business and Heyne’s pivot into full-time ministry. Today, he no longer identifies primarily as an entrepreneur.
“I really am a shepherd,” Heyne says. “A shepherd after Jesus’s own heart, who feeds his CEOs with knowledge and understanding.”
The core of Heyne’s ministry is the “Jesus Christ’s CEOs Bible Institute,” which challenges Christian business owners to rethink their corporate identity. The ministry views Christian-owned for-profit companies not merely as funding sources for charity, but as “consecrated” assemblies designed to “manifest the kingdom of Christ” directly in broader society.
He argues the business is the ministry: “We started a beef jerky business so that we can be a minister of reconciliation in the public square.”
Heyne argues that most Christian CEOs operate with a fundamental misunderstanding of their role.
When Heyne began mentoring business leaders, he quickly realized while many clients identified as Christians, they were not even close to being “true disciples.” He realized that just as a food manufacturer needs a recipe or a builder needs an engineer’s plan, these leaders needed a clear definition of what they were trying to become.
“They’re asking Jesus to participate with them,” Heyne explains. “But as an authentic disciple, you realize you’re participating with Jesus. He’s not participating with you.”
This shift in perspective is what Heyne calls the “ultimate unfair competitive advantage.” He posits that when a leader learns to live in communion with the Holy Spirit, that leader gains access to wisdom and insight that no MBA can provide.
“When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you in all manner of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, it will far exceed anything you could ever attain to,” Heyne asserts. “He’s the one who already created all things.”
For Heyne, this relationship is the prerequisite for everything else. He warns that without this foundation, business owners risk building a kingdom unto themselves, one that God may eventually dismantle to get their attention.
The ministry’s slogan emphasizes total commitment: “It doesn’t cost you anything to be a Jesus Christ CEO except for your life.”
The transition from industry titan to ministry leader demanded this heavy toll for Heyne these last two decades. But despite the material losses, Heyne considers his current position superior to his days of high-flying capitalism. He now teaches others to count the cost, moving them from being merely believers to authentic disciples who habitually live in communion with Christ.
Heyne seeks to build “a storehouse for Jesus, His companies, and His CEOs,” where business leaders can align their companies with the Kingdom.
As the ministry celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2026, Heyne’s focus has shifted from an international outlook to a domestic one. While attending a conference with business leaders from 70 nations, Heyne was struck by their observation of the spiritual state of the United States.
“There is no greater place of need than my own backyard,” Heyne realized.
This has led to the “Jesus’s USA Campaign,” a move to restore the preeminence of Christ specifically in America’s public squares of business. The ministry is expanding its media footprint, recently constructing a studio in Irvine, Calif., to produce content that challenges the status quo of Christian business practices.
Heyne believes the United States offers a unique window of opportunity for this spiritual restoration, but he emphasizes that it must happen through the marketplace, where people live and work, not only inside church walls.
Heyne sees his work as laying a foundation for others to build upon. He speaks of the “Moses and Joshua” dynamic, hoping to establish a blueprint of content and tools that the next generation can use to take territory he never could.
“The moment you stop producing fruit through me, take me home,” is Heyne’s continual prayer. Until then, his mission remains singular: equipping leaders to bridge the gap between Sunday faith and Monday operations.
For the Christian CEO navigating the complexities of the modern economy, Heyne offers a simple, yet demanding invitation:
“Get equipped on how your Christian for-profit business assembly is to actively participate with the Holy Spirit,” he said. “The next move is yours.”
Leray Heyne is an NRB President’s Council member. Jesus Christ’s CEOs has been an NRB member since 2022. To learn more, visit their website: jcceos.com. They are also the sponsor of the World by Media Forum at NRB 2026.