CF Team
CF Team is a privately held family business that exists to ensure that a legacy of hard work and faith is passed from generation to generation. This is a legacy that traces its roots back to the founding of our first family business in 1895. While that business no longer exists, the spirit and value of passing on a core set of beliefs, along with the mechanisms of establishing a lasting legacy have survived to this day.
With God’s help, our mission will last until the end of time.
While the details of a privately held company are not public, there are things we want the world to know, and we’ll share those things here.
Photo Credit:
Herbert L. Christensen
Born 1909 — Promoted 2001
What we want you to know!
Conventional Wisdom
Conventional wisdom, more often than not, is what keeps people from achieving worthwhile things. When you look at the picture here, what do you see? Is the money falling out? Or, is the zippered pouch open enough for the money to be falling in? Which is better?
As you consider the answers to these questions, there are some rather unconventional ways to consider money that make all the difference. Too many of us settle for far too little, because we don’t understand how the laws of nature relate to the laws of money. For our first tidbit, let’s just think about time. It is hard enough thinking about 5 minutes from now, let alone 500 years from now. And our approach to money reflects that. A legacy–any legacy, requires the long view.Â
- Progress on the development of this site. Bear with us as we turn the stock content into our own creation! 20%
Plan
Legacy Planning
“The biggest difference between Money & Time: You always know how much money you have, but you never know how much time you have.” — Unknown
This quote is exactly why every family should be working on a legacy plan. The key to a good legacy plan is to identify family members in each successive generation that understand the importance of a legacy. Properly put in place, a legacy effectively addresses the one thing we don’t know in life… how much time we’ll have.
Diversify
Focused Diversification
The financial world is full of advisors who will preach diversification. Unfortunately, all too often it means investing in different mutual funds. That can appear to be diversification, but often, those funds are trying to beat the same index, and in the process they aren’t really diversified.Â
That’s where the idea of focused diversification comes in. “Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth.” Ecclesiastes 11:2 “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” Ecclesiastes 11:6
Manage
Personal Wealth Management
What does personal wealth management have to do with everything we’ve been saying about a legacy? Everything! As individual members of the family looking to pass on a legacy, what we do personally has a significant impact on what we’re able to do as a family. Each member of the family needs to make a contribution of their time, treasure and talent. All too often families focus on all doing the same business. While there is some truth to that, it makes no sense to have family members with no interest in the law, urged to become lawyers, or if their parents were doctors, for their children to also pursue careers in medicine. You pick the category. For our family, the roots are retail. But that doesn’t mean everyone in the family is cut out to do retail. Making family members feel like they have an obligation to the family to do the family business, misses what it is supposed to be about. Let them be fire fighters, marines, engineers, nurses, educators, or any other honorable profession that interests them. Let the family legacy be something that simply allows them to do those things while making the family wealthy, instead of others.
One Size Fits OneÂ
Create a Strategy That Works For YOU
While we believe the principles we are laying out here are universal, the strategies that implement the principles must adapt to the times. If the family business that started in 1895 didn’t move beyond a small tailor shop, the story of where we are today would be much different for us, even as the principles remain the same. We much prefer the way things turned out, and hopefully we’ve learned a thing or two that will help us pass on a legacy.Â
Years of Family Legacy
We’ve traced our roots back to the 1600s here in the United States, or more accurately what were then colonies of Great Britain.Â
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Target Annual Return
While we don’t talk specifics about our financial results for obvious reasons, we do have a target of producing returns in excess of our target each year. By achieving high financial goals, we will be able to also achieve our legacy goals.
Years of Business Experience in THe USAÂ
Our family business started in 1895, and while that business closed after 103 years, our family has continued to own businesses for a continuous 127 years!
Lives Impacted
The impact our families have had on this country are significant, and with CF Team, we hope to expand that in the years, we have left.
How We Work. Our Mission & Values
We believe the original languages of the Bible to be the very words of God, communicated through roughly 40 different human authors. We’re thankful for the legacy of William Tyndale, who at his death said, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” God answered that prayer, and the King James Version of the Bible was the result. God created everything that is out of nothing by the power of His words. We are under no illusion that our words are that powerful. Make no mistake about it though, they certainly aren’t powerless!
What does this mean for CF Team?
We constantly seek to understand the world in which we live from God’s eternal perspective, instead of our own shortsightedness.Â
The Laws of Nature
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22
The Law of the Harvest
Not all seeds germinate. Not all seeds fall on good soil. Not all seeds are free from being choked out by weeds. Yet, the law of the harvest is the yield. Yields aren’t about addition, they’re about multiplication.
Human Nature
Each one of us falls short of God’s standard of holiness. Even the good deeds we attempt on our own, God calls filthy rags.Â
Family Dynamics
Because families exist in an environment that falls short of God’s glory, our family is, and has been anything but perfect. Left to our own devices, our best intentions wouldn’t produce the righteousness that God desires.
Sustaining a Legacy of Faith
Because of human nature, and our tendency to be dysfunctional families, it is imperative that we understand what it takes to create and sustain a legacy of faith. We must be intentional in allowing God to work through each one of us, as we hold each other accountable for preserving the legacy.
Building Enduring GenerosityÂ
One of the ways that we demonstrate our faith in God, is by being generous with our time, and our treasure. Both are gifts from God in the first place. We’re good stewards of what He entrusts to us, when we can be generous.
Duplicate Our Model
Let Us Help You Take Your Life To New Heights
What kind of relationship do you have with life? Are you excited to face each day? Does the impact of money affect both? Absolutely! The amount of money in this picture isn’t going to cut it for anyone living in the United States. Having said that, there are ways to turn meager beginnings into a legacy, if done properly. We’re willing to help, but you’ve got to be committed to a faith journey, not just a financial one. Without the proper foundation and training, there won’t be a lasting multi-generational legacy. The human tendency is to forget the priorities, and to get into unhealthy rhythms. It takes listening to God instead of ourselves, and being willing to remain humble. Are you ready to see what can happen?
BlogÂ
The Ongoing Story — A Legacy
What follows below are the perspectives of various members of our family. Some are memories shared and passed down. Others are from our own personal, often painful experiences. The Biblical narrative is authentic. The heroes we all know about from David, to Samson, to Saul renamed Paul, all looked toward a future promise. They were not perfect, but they pointed to the One who is, Jesus. That’s what we aim to do with this site. If you’re inspired to create a legacy like this, we’d love to have you join in  your own journey of faith. To God be the glory.
Contact
Get In Touch
We aren’t quite ready for this yet! Coming soon!
CF TeamÂ
Gerald Christensen is a man of few words. Consistent steadfast persistent and hard working are all words that can be used to describe him. He shared lots of words though, in the form of Christian calendar cards left in bathrooms anywhere he went in public, and on every envelope he sent. When his Uncle Vic passed on the role of lining up people to preach the Gospel, that also meant that he’d have to fill in if somebody wasn’t able to preach. It’s been said that pastors should have a sermon in their back pocket, just in case. The reality is that we all have sermons in our back pockets. The only question is, what does your sermon say? Does it have the potential to leave a legacy? Or, is it an unmitigated disaster? Unfortunately the line between the two can be quite thin. Ponder this today.