Faith @ Work Community

Take a deeper look.

  • Building a community that connects marketplace people to life-changing faith in Jesus - encouraging and discipling them to impact their workplaces and metro Richmond with His values, ethics and love.

  • Needle's Eye is an interdenominational Christian ministry that exists to present Jesus Christ to the Greater Richmond business and professional community.

    We are dedicated to helping working and retired professionals integrate their Christian faith into their day-to-day lives.

    In 1977, Buddy Childress founded Needle’s Eye with a vision to turn the work week into a place of care, ethics, and ministry. 

    In 2021, Jordan Maroon became our 2nd Executive Director and worked tirelessly to reach the next generation of professionals and helped us move into our new location.

    In April 2026, Lee Mitchell became our 3rd Executive Director. As we approach 50 years in ministry we have seen God’s continued faithfulness to the Greater Richmond marketplace and how He used Needle’s Eye to change lives and equip professionals to integrate their faith in their work.

  • We are a faith and work community who:

    • Presents Christ to the business and professional community of Richmond

    • Desires deep, authentic relationships with Christ and one another

    • Shares individual testimonies of transformation through Christ redemption

    • Encourages a life of prayer and obedience to the Holy Spirit

    • Reflect the diversity of the Kingdom of God and the marketplace of Richmond

    • Collaborates with the local church for greater impact

    • Pursues excellence understanding our work is unto Christ

  • Since its inception in 1977, Needle’s Eye has had a Board of Directors that provides spiritual direction and leadership.

    Chair — Mike Patterson, President at MP Capital Group, Managing Partner at Kingdom Consulting

    Chip Buehler, Owner, Integrity Landscaping

    Lisa Hampson Butler, Senior Director Business Development, JLL

    Lisa Pumpelly, Director, IMB

    Susan Daniel, Supply Chain Expert, ECR Software

    Bill Davis, Owner & Managing Director, Supporting Strategies

    Sarah Hale, Executive Director, Urban Hope

    Lee Mitchell, President & Executive Director, Needle’s Eye Ministries, Inc.

    Marc Thompson, President, Sovereign Capital Vantage, Inc.

    Chris White, Insurance Advisor, AssuredPartners

    Roy Wood, retired, representative of Second Half ministry

    Jonathan Yost, Chaplain, U.S. Air Force

    Ex officio & Treasurer — Franklin Y. Goare, CPA, Senior Pastor, Hunton Baptist Church

  • We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

    We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

    We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

    We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

    We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

    We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Needle’s Eye Ministries is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Needle’s Eye subscribes to the NAE Statement of Faith and embraces it as our own.

  • We deeply value the role of the church and work to create ongoing partnerships with churches who are interested in expanding discipleship for marketplace people in their congregation. LEARN MORE

Meet the staff.

Our staff at Needle’s Eye is passionate about equipping working and retired professionals in accordance with Scripture:

“ to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,  so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Ephesians 4:12-16

Staff Bios

Transformed for Influence

Find Christ. Grow in Him. Be Transformed by Him.

Change the Marketplace with Him.

Identity

  • From – Saved but unrenewed, living in your Old Self

    To – Wholly His, bringing your whole New Self to your work and workplace

    You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4: 22-2

    Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2

Purpose

  • From – Me and my plans, worldly success driven

    To – Him and His kingdom, compelled by Christ’s love

    …You were called to freedom…do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Galatians 5: 13-14.

    …Not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Ephesians 6:6

Influence

  • From – Scarcity and control, self-focused and prioritized

    To – Abundance and freedom, servant hearted

    Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Cor 15:58.

    As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. James 2:26