Leading businessman takes helm at mission agency
A former top-flight executive from one of the world’s truly global corporations is to be the new chair of the Church Mission Society, one of the country’s oldest world mission agencies.
John Ripley was an executive at Unilever for 35 years, finishing his career there as head of corporate development for the worldwide group.
He succeeds the Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, in January 2011.
Known in the business world as a consummate strategist, Mr Ripley says of his new role that he wants to help build on the courage shown by CMS in the recent past “to take risks with God and for God at a time of considerable uncertainty and change”.
Some of those courageous decisions have been mergers with other agencies, most recently the South American Mission Society. “It is a mission organisation leading the way in partnership and merging.”
Of his own mission, Mr Ripley says he felt a clear call 37 years ago to be an ambassador for God in the business world. Having semi-retired at the end of 2008, his various responsibilities now include being chair of the Christian Association of Business Executives, and treasurer of Feba Radio, the Christian broadcasting charity. Read the rest of the article on the Christianity Today website.
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Rich DeVos, Neal Johnson and Doug Seebeck speaking at International Business Conference
Guest post from the Partners Worldwide Team - October 7-8th Doug Seebeck and the Partners Worldwide team will be hosting the International Business Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This year's theme Marketplace Revolution - Fighting global POVERTY through BUSINESS will be led by a great speaking lineup including:
- Rich DeVos - Co-fonder of Amway Corp and renowned author and speaker on entrepreneurship, economics and faith.
- Neal Johnson - Author of Business as Mission: A comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice
- Ralph Edmond - Entrepreneur and owner of Farmatrix Pharmaceuticals in Hati
- Leila Chirayath Janah - Recipient of TEDIndia Fellowship
- Magatte Wade - Serial Entrepreneur and founder of Adina World Beverages a multi-million dollar beverage company that sells culturally authentic drinks from around the world.
- Joe DeLoss - Founder of Freshbox catering and Director of Social Enterprise at Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio
The power of Business as Mission is revolutionizing the marketplace and more people are asking, "How can business be a part of the solution to poverty?" At the conference you'll be able to:
- Hear the life changing stories of business owners and entrepreneurs who are making this vision a reality.
- Connect with hundreds in the Partners Worldwide network who are applying the foundational principles of partnerships, training and mentoring, access to capital, and advocating justice.
- Identify Business as Mission applications in your church, vocation and community
Past International Business Conferences have drawn attendees from over 25 countries around the world. We continue to hear how this powerful time of training and newtorking is the inspiration internaional entrepreneurs need to be a catalyst of change in their community. For more information, visit the conference website and we hope to see you at the conference in a few week.
Labels: Doug Seebeck, Events and Conferences, Partners Worldwide
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Aren't we all called into "Full-Time Service"?
Guest post by Larry Peabody -
YOU HAVE HEARD: TO REALLY SERVE GOD IN YOUR WORK, GO INTO FULL-TIME SERVICE
BUT SCRIPTURE MAKES IT CLEAR: ALL CHRISTIANS ARE CALLED TO SERVE GOD FULL TIME
"We shape our buildings,” said Winston Churchill; "thereafter they shape us.” In a similar way, we fashion religious terms that from then on have the power to mold our thinking for generations. Case in point: the phrase "full-time Christian service.” Think with me about what we communicate in the way we use that term.
Since who knows when, this phrase has come to mean serving as pastor, missionary, etc. A quick Google search turned up these real-life examples:
· The co-owner of a small business came home from work one day and announced to his wife, "I think we're supposed to go into full-time service.” They eventually went as missionaries to Ethiopia.
· The president's scholarship at a Bible college was "Established for a full-time student . . . with intentions to enter full-time Christian service as a pastor, a missionary, or a teacher.”
· ". . . one-half of those who go into full-time service drop out within 5 years.”
Can God send a business owner to Ethiopia as a missionary? Yes. Might he have called "Phil” to work as a pastor? Of course. If I no longer receive my paycheck from a religious organization, does that automatically mean I've "dropped out" of serving the Lord full time? I hope not. I fully get what we Christians intend when we say "full-time Christian service.” What troubles me is what the phrase, "full-time Christian service,” locks us into saying without our intending to do so.
The words send the not-so-subtle signal that believers not in "full-time service” must be serving God part time (or perhaps not at all). This raises some questions. If full-time service includes all seven pieces of the weekly pie, does serving him part time mean settling for only the Sunday slice? Does that mean those in ordinary jobs are not serving God while on duty there? Does "dropping out” of full-time service carry the stigma of reduced Kingdom value? When Paul stopped preaching to make tents, was he dropping out of full-time service?
Maybe the root question goes like this: Does the New Testament ever describe a Christ-follower as entering or leaving "full-time service”? Clearly, the answer is no. Then does the New Testament have anything to say that should shape our thinking in this area? Yes.
For example, Paul told the believers in the church at Corinth, "Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord” (I Cor. 15:58). Always means at all times. Fully means abundantly, many times over—completely. Did Paul address his letter to a pastor at Corinth? No. To the elders? No. He wrote it "to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2). In other words, he wrote 15:58 to all the believers in the church.
Those believers included slaves (12:13). Slaves did a great deal of the ordinary work that kept life going back in those days. Think of it! Paul expected them—whether they served as maids, miners, or masons—to give themselves to the work of the Lord completely and at all times. Without using the phrase, "full-time service,” Paul seems to be saying even those who carry out the everyday chores of the work world should engage in service full time for their Lord.
Whatever your work, God has called you into full-time service for him. Yes, God gifts and calls some to work as pastors and teachers and so on. But their job is to prepare the rest of God's people to serve him full time, no matter what kind of work he may have placed them in (Eph. 4:11-12).
But the way our religious traditions have taught us to use the phrase, "full-time service,” suggests that it's okay to be a believer and yet to be involved in something less than serving the Lord full time. What do you think? Might our use of this language at least partly explain why many believers remain underemployed in the kingdom of God?
About Larry Peabody- Larry has served in three Washington State agencies over a span of 11 years, primarily in the area of public information. For the next 17 years, he worked as a self-employed business owner. While still in that role, he led a team that planted a church, serving as a bi-vocational pastor for 8 years and then as a full-time, paid senior pastor for another 13 years. He retired from his senior pastor role in August 2007. Larry authored the book, SERVING CHRIST IN THE WORKPLACE. His book may be purchased on-line through Amazon.com.
Labels: Larry Peabody, Sacred and Secular Divide
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An Example of a Life Well-Lived
During the seating of the guests and, for a few minutes at the beginning of the service, a series of pictures from his life were projected on a large screen in the front of the room. Scores of pictures were chosen by those he loved and left behind to present the most important and memorable scenes and seasons of a remarkable life lived ‘large.’ Watching them brought tears and laughter… sometimes at the same time. This was a great guy and the photos provided a touching review of his life’s celebrations and values.
As I watched, I was struck by the fact that, out of the tons of pictures that were selected, not one of them showed him at the office. It’s not as though he didn’t have one! The man had an extraordinarily successful business career. There could have undoubtedly been bunches of pictures of awards won, sales made, milestones accomplished, and promotions gained from a professional perspective. But, in the retrospective view of his life, such things were pushed aside by pictures of family vacations, weddings, births, graduations, grandchildren, and many ‘ministry moments.’
Each of his five sons-in-law wrote or spoke of their relationship with him. His closest friends shared precious memories from sports, fishing trips, ski vacations, and work-related relationships. No one mentioned degrees, net worth, or worldly accomplishments, although they surely could have. But at this point, all of those things had lost their meaning and had little significance in summing up his life and its impact. Gene’s life was summarized in terms of the impact he had on others for eternity!
It will be the same for you and me. One split second after we take our final breath, so many of the things that we think are important now will become totally unimportant to us or to those that we love most.
I’m so glad that I knew this man and also that I was a part of the celebration of his life. It was both an encouragement to me to ‘press on’ and a reminder that, when our time comes (and it surely will), our lives and legacy will be the sum total of the choices that we’ve made and the priorities that we’ve lived. Choices have consequences. How we’ll be remembered will be a reflection of our life’s priorities. As we often say in C12: “Priorities are what we do. Everything else is just talk!”
This man made lots of right choices. He wasn’t perfect (only One man ever has been), but he made lots of good choices. So, in honor of my brother, Gene, why not…
• Have a daily quiet time with Jesus
• Go home early and hug your children’s mom
• Don’t miss a game
• Give when it hurts or until it does
• Listen
• Never skip a vacation to work
• Delegate
• Say “No” sometimes
• Laugh at yourself – often
Remember if you can’t be happy with what you’ve got, you’ll never be happy with what you’re trying to get! Every issue and relationship is an opportunity to share the love and truth of our Lord
Press on! Run through the tape!
And Gene… well done! See you at home, big guy!
Labels: Buck Jacobs, C12 Group
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Hope International Hiring Managing Director for the Republic of Congo
Guest Post by the Team at Hope International - The Managing Director (MD) has full responsibility for all the activities of HOPE CONGO. Working collaboratively with the HOPE CONGO Board, more specifically with the HOPE International (HI) Regional Director, and the HOPE CONGO Management Team, the MD has responsibility to set goals, to ensure that appropriate resources are in place, and to achieve or exceed those goals, leading to the overall realization of the HOPE CONGO’s mission. Read full job description. All interested candidates should submit a resume and cover letter to Anna Haggard, Human Resources & Executive Writing Assistant, atjobs@hopeinternational.org by July 26th.
Full details can be found at: http://www.hopeinternational.
Labels: Hope International, Recruitment and Job Opportunities
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Are We Exporting Our Faulty Workplace Vision?
The flood of missionaries—long- term and short—began to overwhelm the local gatherings of believers. So much so that Cosden's pastor often found himself with no time to speak because of all the missionary guests seeking a platform.
As he listened to them, Cosden began to detect a pattern. “. . . again and again, we heard the same people offer similar words of ‘testimony' about how they came to Russia: ‘I'm not sure why God called me here. I have no specific training for this context or knowledge of your church, culture, or language. But isn't it amazing that God would call an ordinary person like me, release me from the daily grind of my meaningless (but well-paying) job back home, provide me with plenty of money, and send me here to be a missionary to spread the gospel?' . . . Week after week we heard this same message, including, in some form or another, the degradation of ‘meaningless' ordinary work.”
The repetition of this theme took its toll. Russian believers began to think that maybe the gospel offered them a way out of their everyday work. Maybe one of these foreign missionaries, who seemed so financially independent, could work out a way for them to leave the drudgery and engage in far more exciting gospel work.
In hindsight, Cosden concludes: “To them we were modeling what it meant to be ‘spiritual' and a real missionary. But was this really what it means to do God's work? . . . To this day, many of these folk are still waiting and wondering if eventually God might call them to leave their work and become missionaries.”
Church history and its spinoff traditions have spawned the notion that serving God in your work means entering one of the the “sacred” professions (missionary, pastor, evangelist, etc.). We western Christians have bought heavily into this idea. Now, it seems, we are packaging the seeds of this unbiblical message in with the gospel and exporting the mix. And so it should come as no surprise that we reproduce what those seeds have produced here at home. As one western executive put it, “I suppose if I'm really going to be committed as a Christian I need to go into full-time Christian service and become a pastor or missionary” (quoted in Doing God's Business, by R. Paul Stevens).
About Larry Peabody- Larry has served in three Washington State agencies over a span of 11 years, primarily in the area of public information. For the next 17 years, he worked as a self-employed business owner. While still in that role, he led a team that planted a church, serving as a bi-vocational pastor for 8 years and then as a full-time, paid senior pastor for another 13 years. He retired from his senior pastor role in August 2007. Larry authored the book, SERVING CHRIST IN THE WORKPLACE. His book may be purchased on-line through Amazon.com.
Labels: Larry Peabody
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C12 President Don Barefoot and Founder Buck Jacobs speaking at Upcoming FCCI Conference
Held from September 26-30, this conference will take place at Ritz-Carlton’s new Dove Mountain Resort, where excellent room rates have been negotiated. C12 is exploring ways to potentially collaborate with FCCI in a mutual effort to gain kingdom synergies in the hosting of leaders conferences on a national, international and regional basis. This will be the only C12 leaders conference for 2010 so if you're in C12 and you're looking for a leadership experience this fall this will be the place to be.
To learn more about the upcoming late September conference, please click here for C12’s news item which contains a link to FCCI’s 2010 international conference. To register for this conference, click here.
Labels: Buck Jacobs, C12 Group, Don Barefoot, FCCI
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