Meshing Sunday and Monday - Workplace Groups
Guest Post by Larry Peabody - In an earlier post, I suggested a two-pronged strategy for meshing Sunday and Monday. The second part called for "encouraging believers to gather even when scattered.” One way to carry that out: promoting the formation of workplace groups. In such groups, Christian co-workers meet regularly to pray, study Scripture, and encourage one another.
Such workplace groups meet in a variety of ways. Some, with permission from their company or agency, gather onsite. Others convene in nearby locations, such as restaurants or coffee shops. Times vary: before work, during the lunch break, or after hours. While working for a state government agency, I met with several other believers in my office at noon. Because we "brown-bagged” it, we ate together.
Some Christians shy away from starting a workplace group because they fear the law might not allow such meetings. The website of the American Center for Law and Justice offers a wealth of information on the rights of Christians in the workplace. For example, one believer from Kentucky wrote to ask about starting a Bible study in the conference room of the engineering firm where he worked.
Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for ACJJ, answered: "Since it's a private place of employment, they do not have to make space available to you, but they can make space available to you without getting into any kind of problems for religious discrimination. But it has to be voluntary—in other words, you and the employer can't compel people to attend. You should have it during non-work hours, i.e. during a lunch break, or before or after work. If you do it during those time frames, you're in great shape legally; and again, the employer will not get into any kind of trouble or difficulty simply by allowing you to have a Bible study at the workplace. Again, as long as it is voluntary—that's the key here: make sure the Bible study is voluntary.”
Several weeks ago a Christian employee from Microsoft invited my wife and me to visit a workplace group that met on the campus of that software giant in Redmond, Washington. We expected the meeting might include three or four. To our surprise, 17 showed up. We learned that last February, a group of Christians sensed God calling them to start unifying the body of Christ at Microsoft. After a week of meeting daily for prayer, they began meeting in the Microsoft cafeteria twice a week. They have had dinners together, days of prayer and fasting, and a praise night. They even maintain their own website.
In Matt. 18:20, Jesus endorses groups even as small as two or three to gather in his name. Yet even here, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to tell us yes or no. The late Pete Hammond of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship offered six reasons why in some cases a workplace Bible study might not be a good idea. For example: "It can send the wrong message about what the faith is all about. If all the believers in a particular work force are only known for loyal attendance at a Bible study and not for other things like diligence, compassion, integrity and good work—faith can be seen as just religious activity and not as a way of life that produces servant people.” For the other five reasons, click here.
Hammond's warning should remind us to make certain our meetings are accomplishing kingdom-of-God purposes. The point of meeting in the workplace should line up with what Hebrews 10:24 and 25 describe as the aims whenever Christians gather—to encourage each other and to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
Have you had experience either as a member or as a leader of a group of Christians meeting in a workplace? If so, I invite you to comment on whether you believe it has helped equip Christians to serve God in their work.
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Labels: Larry Peabody, Meshing Sunday and Monday, Sacred and Secular Divide
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Chinese officials say Christian-run businesses good for China
Link to an article by Mats Tunehag - “Christian faith may sound like an unlikely component in China's future economic success. But the notion that newfound faith can inspire a workforce to increased levels of productivity is being taken seriously not only by Christian businessmen, but by China's Communist - and officially atheist - leaders.”
BBC ran a story on August 11 called Christian faith plus Chinese productivity. Those of us who have studied and observed Christian business ethics and transformation of societies – in history and around the world - are not surprised to find a correlation. Now even atheist and communist Chinese officials are saying the same.
The article says that workers who become Christians assume responsibility, they develop a good work ethic and are also eager to tell co-worker about their newfound faith.
Weng-Jen Wau is the general manager of a manufacturing plant which produces industrial valves for 5 million US dollars per month. He shares that when staff convert to Christianity, their attitude towards their work is transformed.
"If you're a Christian you're more honest, with a better heart," he says. "The people who aren't Christians aren't responsible. I think it's very different.
Follow Mats on his blog and read the rest of the story here.
Labels: China, Mats Tunehag
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Selecting Mentors with One Life in Mind by Buck Jacobs
1. Intimacy with God
2. Commitment to a godly marriage
3. Commitment to godly parenting
4.
A proven history of fruitfully ministering the truth in live to others
5. Aware of the dangers of materialism and models
active resistance to excessive acquisition
6.
Displays self-discipline
7. Commitment to lifelong learning
Each quality listed above requires
that we intentionally focus our attention on the life of the mentor. These qualities are directly related to
fundamental spiritual perspectives and values.
While we might instead select someone simply based on their apparent
accomplishments, there’s good reason to begin with these basic Biblical
characteristics. To clarify, let me provide
an example of where we’re going with this as it applies to our work and/or
career.
I once had the privilege of meeting
Max DePree, the retired CEO and Chairman of Herman Miller Corporation, one of
America’s most admired companies. After
we were introduced, Mr. DePree asked me what I did. I replied, “I teach Christians to integrate
their faith into their businesses.” Mr.
DePree paused and then said to me, “Don’t you have that exactly backwards,
Buck? Isn’t our faith the center of our lives? And shouldn’t we be bringing all things to our
faith, rather than vice-versa? We’ll be
Christians long after we aren’t businessmen.”
He, of course, was right on! For
a Christ-follower, Jesus and our faith is
the center of our lives. All other
relationships or activities should be conformed or viewed through our
relationship to Christ, rather than in any way driving changes to our
relationship with Him. For most 21st
century Christians this is very radical thinking. We’ve been culturally trained to believe
that we’re gradually and inexorably progressing toward a secular public square
where we can’t mix faith with business, politics, or anything else outside of
our homes and churches. This nonsense
only serves to legitimize the world’s accusation of hypocrisy against many
Christians. A hypocrite is one who professes to believe in one standard but
lives according to another. How tough is
it to spot such hypocrisy among Christians in business?
Why is this the case? The fact is that the only part of our career with
any lasting value to us is that which has eternal
significance. Our businesses are our
unique mission fields. Our ultimate
success will be measured not by how financially rewarding they are, but by how
faithful we’ve been in allowing Christ to live through us as we lead and
operate each day. All the toys and shiny
things of this world will lose their value to us completely and forever the
moment we draw our last breath. Only
those things that we’ve done that have value to Jesus will accompany us through
His judgment and into ETERNAL LIFE! Therefore,
only those mentors that understand life from a Biblical perspective can be of
real value to us in the true ‘big picture.’ This isn’t to say that we can’t learn practical
skills or be taught worthwhile things by ungodly people. Of course we can. But we must use godly discernment. Many have been led astray by leaning their
ladders against the wrong wall and climbing towards a faulty understanding of
success.
Scripture says, “Seek first the
Kingdom of God” (Mt 6:33) and “Blessed is he who seeks NOT the counsel of the
ungodly…” (Ps1:1). In the most basic
terms, our earthly lives are preparation for our eternal lives. Therefore, our mentors should reflect those
values and qualities that support the big picture, combining both spiritual
maturity and practical experience. Is it
hard to find men and women who combine both? Sure. Like
most things truly worth having, the search will take effort. But is it worth the effort? In just a wink-of-the-eye in eternal terms
(i.e., 1, 100, or 1000 years) we’ll know for sure that it was! As the old poem says, “Only ONE LIFE, ‘twill soon be passed, only what’s done for Christ will
last.”
The best mentors in my life have
been men who love God. Some have had
great business skills and experience, some haven’t. The amazing thing is that some of the very
best business advice I’ve received came from those who had the least business
experience but the best ability to hear from God. Should we be surprised? Think about it. Who knows what we really need and what choices
are consistent with our eternal good?
If this all makes sense to you and
you’d like to find God’s mentor(s) for you, start by asking Him. He already knows just who and where they are
and how you can connect with them. Ask
Him! Then watch your life and business
begin to align in ways that hold great eternal promise.
Labels: Buck Jacobs, C12 Group
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Thanksgiving in the Marketplace
Guest Post by the C12 Group - Paul’s exhortation to us, “To give thanks in all circumstances, for
this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1Thes 5:18), must have been
especially challenging for the Pilgrims when they gathered to celebrate God’s
providence on that first American Thanksgiving day in the autumn of 1621. Those of us who feel burdened this
Thanksgiving by current economic conditions should take a moment to put
ourselves in the shoes of the Pilgrims.
After fleeing English religious
persecution in 1609, the Pilgrims settled in Holland for a decade, where Dutch
freedom enabled them to live and worship as they desired but also introduced
unwanted threats and temptations to the godly way of life the Pilgrims
desired. This prompted 110 of them to
ultimately sail to the ‘New World’ in 1620 to seek safe haven where they might
build a Christ-honoring community. In
exchange for using sailing vessels and supplies, they promised seven years of
labor on behalf of their English backers.
Weakened by the cold 65-day trip from Plymouth, England, they finally
settled in what they called Plymouth, New England in late November, 1620. By that first winter’s end, their numbers had
dwindled to less than 50.
Following that first brutal winter, in
March of 1621, the desperate remnant was visited by a man that Plymouth
Governor William Bradford described as a “special instrument sent of God for
their good.” Squanto, a local Indian,
was introduced to them by another local Indian, Samoset, who actually spoke
limited English from prior interactions with English fishermen. Squanto, however, spoke English very well, as God had providentially
given him a crash course in learning the ways of the English and Europeans over
the prior few years. Squanto had been
enslaved by earlier English explorers and had spent three to four years living
in Spain, England and Newfoundland before again resettling in the area of his
birth. During his time away, his tribe
had been wiped out by an epidemic, and now Squanto was able and willing to help
the Pilgrims ‘make a go of it’ in New England.
Even though Squanto only lived another two years (he died an apparent
Christian), his beneficial impact was so significant that the Pilgrims were amazingly
able to celebrate restored health and God’s bounty just six months into their
new adventure! This hardy Christian remnant
helped to build New England and, ultimately, an independent ‘nation under God’ just
155 years after that first trying winter.
So, what direct application does this
history have for us as we celebrate
Thanksgiving in 2010? Unlike the
Pilgrims, we generally have ample food in the pantry and are able to live, work
and travel in temperature-controlled comfort.
Our issues seem to relate more to the fear of losing what we have, or
anxiety over possible unmet hopes and plans. Yet when we recall our limitations, in contrast
to God’s boundless sovereign power and the promise of eternal life in Christ,
we can celebrate God’s promise to work through the lives and trials of His
children with our eternal best in mind. He
is doing this already and in spite of what we see or feel each day. In dimensions and timeframes which we’re
often completely blind to – like how He had prepared and later sent Squanto to
help the Pilgrims – God is already working in us, through us, and around us for
our eternal good (Ro 8:28). He is even
using this stagnant economy to draw us nearer to Him and instruct us in our
healthy dependence on Him. This is a day
for Christian business leaders – those who have been entrusted with much and
are privileged to be His stewards and ambassadors – to remember God and give
thanks. Psalm 106:1 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” What will you do this Thanksgiving to help
your family and business stakeholders more deeply consider how and why we’re
thankful to our gracious God?!
Have a Blessed and Fruitful
Thanksgiving,
Your Friends and Co-Laborers in Christ at
The C12 Group
Labels: C12 Group, Thanksgiving
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Training: Adding Value to the Entrepreneur
God instructs man in Genesis 1 to be fruitful and
multiply, to work the land, to create and increase. I believe business falls
under this mandate – and what an amazing process to be involved in!
I am also quite passionate about training. I believe
that preparation and training can be the difference between failure and
success, and I am all about hedging towards success. This is particularly true
for the entrepreneur starting a business in an emerging economy of the world
where there is so much to learn and so much to consider.
A good entrepreneur should always be learning: from experience,
from success and failure, and from others. I have seen firsthand the added
value that training brings to the entrepreneur as I’ve been involved in the
dynamic process of intensive training courses,
Foundations
In the context of training, the entrepreneur gives time to focus on the greater and deeper meaning behind what they intend to do by asking the why questions. Why business? Why here? Why a language institute? Why coffee exporting? Others involved in the training process also ask good questions, without personal history or relational risk. Sometimes the entrepreneur has not considered their situation from all angles and the lecturer, the business coach or the classmate asks the right question.
Details
A deliberate time of preparation provides the opportunity to drill more deeply into the details of a business plan. We know from many scriptures that planning is an honorable and worthwhile endeavor. In Luke 14 Jesus asks ‘for which of you intending to build a tower, does not fist sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he as enough to complete it?’ In the context of training, the business concept, the projections, the numbers are all examined and developed. Dead-ends and fruitless effort can be avoided and money saved in the future. The value of having others join you in your business development process can be the key to taking a successful next step.
Attitude
One of the key lessons from becoming a learner is that we need to be learners! As an entrepreneur enters a new environment, city or culture their attitude should be as a learner: asking questions, observing and seeking understanding. Indeed, as a rule for life Paul exhorts us to imitate Christ’s humility in Philippians 2. I live in Asia and I am constantly the one who needs to understand and the one who has the most to learn. Grasping this lesson can make you personally and can also make your business. There are many ways to continue on as a learner, however the essential work of research, cross-cultural understanding and honest evaluation of your own world-view can be accelerated in the context of training and preparation.
Walking together
No person is an island. One of our highest recommendations to entrepreneurs planning to work in emerging economies is to form a team, either to consider going with others or to quickly find those with a common vision and join together with them. One of the most rewarding aspects of a training course is the relationships that are built. Many find that their calling and passion is affirmed for the first time as they find themselves in a group of like-minded people. During the training process there is constant exchange of ideas and networking and many times the ground is prepared for future partnership.
For the entrepreneur, training provides an intensive opportunity to extract key lessons and great value from those who have gone before them. Training provides a “pause” to reflect, plan, observe and network.
In the context of training, the entrepreneur gives time to focus on the greater and deeper meaning behind what they intend to do by asking the why questions. Why business? Why here? Why a language institute? Why coffee exporting? Others involved in the training process also ask good questions, without personal history or relational risk. Sometimes the entrepreneur has not considered their situation from all angles and the lecturer, the business coach or the classmate asks the right question.
Details
A deliberate time of preparation provides the opportunity to drill more deeply into the details of a business plan. We know from many scriptures that planning is an honorable and worthwhile endeavor. In Luke 14 Jesus asks ‘for which of you intending to build a tower, does not fist sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he as enough to complete it?’ In the context of training, the business concept, the projections, the numbers are all examined and developed. Dead-ends and fruitless effort can be avoided and money saved in the future. The value of having others join you in your business development process can be the key to taking a successful next step.
Attitude
One of the key lessons from becoming a learner is that we need to be learners! As an entrepreneur enters a new environment, city or culture their attitude should be as a learner: asking questions, observing and seeking understanding. Indeed, as a rule for life Paul exhorts us to imitate Christ’s humility in Philippians 2. I live in Asia and I am constantly the one who needs to understand and the one who has the most to learn. Grasping this lesson can make you personally and can also make your business. There are many ways to continue on as a learner, however the essential work of research, cross-cultural understanding and honest evaluation of your own world-view can be accelerated in the context of training and preparation.
Walking together
No person is an island. One of our highest recommendations to entrepreneurs planning to work in emerging economies is to form a team, either to consider going with others or to quickly find those with a common vision and join together with them. One of the most rewarding aspects of a training course is the relationships that are built. Many find that their calling and passion is affirmed for the first time as they find themselves in a group of like-minded people. During the training process there is constant exchange of ideas and networking and many times the ground is prepared for future partnership.
For the entrepreneur, training provides an intensive opportunity to extract key lessons and great value from those who have gone before them. Training provides a “pause” to reflect, plan, observe and network.
Mark Plummer leads the Business as Mission Resource
Team in Thailand and works with Thai coffee growers to get their high quality
but unknown coffee onto the world market.
He has been leading training courses for 18 years and iBAM training for
4 years. For more information see www.businessasmission.com
Labels: Mark Plummer, YWAM
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Is BAM worthy of its own Degree? A Conversation with Dr. Steve Rundle
The first question – “What do we mean by BAM?” – is one that I have
found to be absolutely essential to any rational conversation about the
subject, because there is a bewildering range of definitions. For example, not long ago I received an email
from a well-known missions leader who expressed concern about whether and when
BAM would “live up to its promise.” For
this person, BAM is a new frontier missionary strategy, a vehicle for planting
churches in unreached parts of the world. For people in this camp, the business
itself is largely a means to an end, and the relatively small number of
business professionals assisting or joining those church planting teams has
been disappointing. Others in this
“means to an end” camp complain that the relatively small number of new
churches associated with those business-missionary teams has been disappointing,
and calls into question the very legitimacy of BAM.
In the interest of full disclosure I’ll admit to falling in the second
group, although I’m also very excited about the work being done in the third
group, and I have many good friends who are in the means-to-an-end category. But
fundamentally, I believe that what’s new and exciting about BAM is that God is raising
up a new generation of missionary, and many of these missionaries are receiving
their training in our business schools and they see no contradiction between the
calling into business and the calling into ministry or missions.
Let’s assume that my definition of BAM is the one that prevails and
there is no longer any disagreement. Would that make it a legitimate discipline
or field of study? Scholars have long debated the question of how and when
something can be classified as a discipline.
In their discussions, many refer to Thomas Kuhn’s influential book about
the nature of scientific paradigms. In fact, the terms academic discipline and
scientific paradigm are often used interchangeably.
So there’s my answer – I believe BAM has strong promise as a discipline,
but I’m wary about creating undergraduate degrees in the field.
Labels: Steve Rundle
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Meshing Sunday and Monday: Workplace Visits
Guest post by Larry Peabody - This continues a series suggesting a number of ways to relate what happens in our church services on Sundays to life in our workplaces on weekdays. This post proposes another way to shrink that distance—pastoral visits to the workplace.
Earlier this month the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization convened in Cape Town, South Africa. Willy Kotiuga, from Montreal, submitted an Advance Paper in preparation for a session on marketplace ministry. In that paper he writes, "Although pastors rub shoulders with the laity in a church context, the discussions are primarily focused on church business and not workplace mission.” That gap can be narrowed when pastors visit church members in their workplaces.
In his website, Justin Buzzard, a pastor in the San Francisco Bay area for several years, writes: "I've discovered that one of the most important things for me to do is to hang out with men in my church at their workplace. This helps the men. It shows them that I care about their callings, how they spend 50+ hours of their week, and the people they work with. This helps me. It teaches me about the unique opportunities and challenges men are facing in their different workplaces, it opens my eyes to a world bigger than our church, and it helps set new trajectories for my preaching and discipling.”
I'd add that working women also need such visits. If gender issues concern a male pastor, he (if married) and his spouse could make the workplace visit as a team. For example, my wife and I visited a woman who worked in the fund-raising office of a hospital.
In an Intervarsity website, Gordon Govier quotes Michael Lindsay, a sociology professor at Rich University. Lindsay has asked many Christians how often their pastors visit their workplaces. "I interviewed 360 leaders in government, business and culture,” he says. "Only one said that their pastor had actually visited them in their workplace.” That one man told Lindsay precisely what he and his pastor talked about that day. He even remembered how they were dressed. Lindsay tells his pastor friends, "If you want to have an influence in your community, get out and pay pastoral visits to the workplace.”
Dennis Bakke, co-founder and CEO of the AES Corporation from 1994 to 2002, writes of his experience with pastoral visits to the workplace in his book, Joy at Work. "I recall only two or three visits to my place of work by one of my pastors in the past 30 years. . . . For people like me, a pastoral visit affirms the importance to God of my daily tasks and reinforces the idea that my work has been ordained by God. . . . I am reminded that I am God's representative at my place of work and that I am accountable to Him for my behavior and actions on the job and especially for the service or product I help provide to society.”
If you're a pastor, consider these recommendations for workplace visits:
- If possible, meet in the person's actual work space. Lunch afterward is okay—but no restaurant can substitute for experiencing the working "habitat.”
- Make certain the working person would welcome such a visit. Some workplaces discourage visits from outsiders during working hours.
- Ask questions about the company or agency as well as the person's role in that workplace. Keep your eyes open and ask about anything you don't understand. Don't let yourself get sidetracked into discussing gathered-church matters.
- Use the opportunity to encourage the person to believe that he or she is there to do the work in ways that reflect Christ. Help him or her to see how the work carries out God's first commission—to care for His earth and its creatures.
A sentence from Lesslie Newbigin underscores the importance of pastoral visits to the workplace: "The primary action of the church in the world is the action of its members in their daily work.”
If you spend your weeks in the work world, and if you were to write a letter inviting your pastor to visit your workplace, what would you say? Please tell us in the comments space below.
Labels: Larry Peabody, Sacred and Secular Divide
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Does Charity Put the Customer First?
Unfortunately, this lack of focus on the customer is not only a US-centric epidemic. In fact, it is one of the main reasons why billions of dollars of traditional aid to the developing world have simply disappeared. Too often aid agencies have looked at the governing elite as their customers instead of the poor, who are the ultimate recipients of the service. The poor are perceived not as customers, but rather as charity recipients.
Recently, I returned from spending nine months in Pakistan, where I worked for a drip irrigation company that targeted small farmers. As a for-profit start-up, we soon realized that our product offerings were not gaining the traction that we desired. As we dug deeper into the problem, we recognized that we were not doing a good job of putting the customer’s needs at the forefront of our business. Of course we would spend time in the field with customers listening to their concerns, but customer service was not a strategic part of our business. We found ourselves discussing our customers’ needs as if we knew exactly what they were when in fact we did not. The turn around came when we began to deploy IDEOs Human Centered Design approach in the field. We began to conduct in-depth interviews with customers to discern what influenced them and how they made decisions. We finally were really listening to the customer. Soon, we began to change our focus from more expensive systems to a cheaper system that only cost $12.
Social Entrepreneurship is different than traditional aid because it treats the poor as customers who have a choice, often for the first time. By selling a product or service to the poor instead of giving it away for free, social enterprises have the ability to use the market as a feedback loop to tell which goods and services are working and which are not. Just recently, D.Light Design, a for-profit company who is serving people without access to reliable electricity, listened to its customers and heard that their product offerings were still too expensive at a $15 price point. They went back to the drawing board and came up with an even cheaper solar light that is more user friendly for only $10.
When the poor pay for critical goods and services they become empowered. They can vote with their limited discretionary funds and demand a level of service that charity is hard pressed to replicate.
Read more from Joel Montgomery at http://globalimpressions.
Labels: Joel Montgomery, Laundry Love
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"Poverty is Not Fought with Donations"
"Poverty is not fought with donations." Carlos Slim, the worlds' richest man (and a non-signer of the Giving Pledge) in a recent Wall Street Journal article
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Meshing Sunday and Monday: Sermons on Work as Worship
Guest Post by Larry Peabody - A few weeks ago, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate has stagnated at 9.6 percent. Despite small gains in the private sector, we
lost 95,000 jobs last month. Especially hard-hit: public schools. The news triggered countless stories in the media. How many sermons will refer to it?
As employers lighten their payrolls, believers without incomes find themselves in circumstances calling them to a deeper experience of trusting God. Those who remain on payrolls must often carry a heavier load and work more hours. That, of course, affects marriages, family life, and many other areas.
As Sunday rolls around, I wonder how many messages will speak into the work world of believers deeply affected by the economy. In the website, "Preaching,” Katie Miller writes, "Most people never have heard a sermon on the value of the workplace.” R. Paul Stevens, in his book, Doing God's Business, writes: "I often ask my students when was the last time they heard a sermon on work. Usually only one or two out of a class of thirty have heard something in the last year or two.”
Sermons can play an important role in meshing Sunday and Monday. Am I suggesting that pastors make pronouncements on the complex details of occupations they know little or nothing about? No. Instead, I'm asking that we include the theology of work in Sunday sermons. The other day, I used the phrase, "theology of work,” in conversation with a Christian. "Huh?” he said. He had no clue what I meant.
Theology. This two-part word comes from a term meaning God and from one meaning word or saying. So the theology of work focuses on what God says about work. What has God said in his Word about work? He has certainly not ignored the subject. In the NIV version of the Bible, the three terms, work, labor, and toil, appear about 500 times. Some of those speak of God's work. Others speak of ours.
Because God speaks so often about work in Scripture, work belongs in sermons as well. And because believers spend such a large part of their waking hours working, sermons ought to connect what God says about work with how we see and do our work. That connection will do much to mesh Sunday and Monday.
If Christians seldom if ever hear sermons about their work, then a great number of unspoken questions in the minds and hearts of those in the work world go unanswered. For example, "Why work?” Without teaching on what God has said on this important subject, Christians may simply absorb the world's reasons for working by osmosis. I recently presented a sermon with the title, "Why Get Up and Go to Work?” After the message, a woman who appeared to be in her 60s told me, "I wish I'd heard these things years ago!”
Other unspoken questions may include: Does God approve of earnings and profit? Or is it better to "live by faith”? Should I quit my "secular” job and find work in "full-time Christian service”? Isn't work really God's punishment for sin—something just to be endured? Is it right for a Christian to have ambitions in the work world? How do I stay aware of God's presence in a boring job? How do I maintain a godly attitude at work when the non-Christians around me do not? How can I balance my attention to work, family, and church? How far can I go in witnessing at work?
If you're a believer with a job, get with your pastor and speak out your unspoken questions about how your faith and your work intersect. If you're a pastor, ask open-ended questions: As a believer, what is most/least fulfilling in your daily work? What do you see as the meaning of your work? Does your work have any eternal significance? Scripture brims over with material that can easily develop into work-oriented messages. I preached a sermon series on Daniel that eventually led me to write a 12-chapter bookon his years as a Babylonian bureaucrat. Paul's words to slaves are full of sermon seeds.
Dream with me! Imagine what could happen if church services all around the world regularly included sermons on the theology of work. As believers by the millions went off to work each week, they could go there wholeheartedly, confident that God had purposely placed them there as lights in a dark world. Think of the young people who, having grown up knowing the theology of work, could make it their goal to illuminate business and government at all levels.
If you could hear a sermon on work this Sunday, what question would you like for it to address?
Labels: Larry Peabody
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4 Free Passes to the RightNow Conference with Erwin McManus
This week
will be a fun week as leaders from across the metroplex and across the country
gather for the RightNow Conference at Irving Bible Church Nov 11-12th.
Max Lucado, Tony Evans, Erwin McManus, David Kinnaman and others will be challenging us to lead beyond the walls. On Thursday and Friday during the day we will host about 1600
church leaders. On Friday night we will add another 1000 attendees who
are mostly 20 and 30 somethings.
If you're here in Dallas I hope you can join the event on Friday night for the RightNow Experience. This will be the culmination of the entire event. I'm especially looking forward to it because Erwin McManus, author pastor of Mosaic LA will be talking about one of the most overlooked opportunities in the church. He'll be unleashing people to see work as an opportunity for worship.
Friday is the most action-packed
part of the event and a blast to be at. We will hear from speakers, but
there will be a major emphasis for the crowd to respond and take action. We will have on-site opportunities to do things through World Vision as
well as about 25 other ministries where people can plug in to serve. Last
year our crowd sponsored 200 children, built 2000 caregiver kits to be used
with AIDS workers in Africa and signed up for
service opportunities all over the city and world.
I have 4 free guest passes to give out. Send me an email through this link and I'll put you in the drawing and give them out tomorrow.
Labels: Erwin McManus, RightNow Conference, The Rightnow Campaign
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New book by Ken Eldred - The Integrated Life: Experience the Powerful Advantage of Integrating Your Faith and Work
What if we could resolve the exhausting struggle between work, family, and spiritual life? What if we recognized a deep connection between faith and business? What if biblical values weren’t roadblocks but actually the source of successful business? What if the real goal of business were more noble than maximizing profit? What if we could see our everyday work as having spiritual value? What if we could approach it as ministry? What if it were our calling, a calling as high as that of a pastor or missionary? What if God cared deeply about our work and wanted to be involved? And what if we could even partner with him in our business?Ken Eldred's book God is at Work unlocked the potential for businessmen across the country to see work, and their businesses themselves as opportunities for ministry.
A few weeks ago I was able to spend some time with Ken and Alex Brubaker out in California at their offices in the Bay Area. They've just finished a new project, The Integrated Life: Experience the Powerful Advantage of Integrating Your Faith and Work that just released last week.
Some may believe the key to resolving the tension between work and faith lies in a more balanced life. Pursuing balance is important, Ken explains in the book, but that noble effort still leaves us with compartmentalized lives. We still sense that all those prime hours of our day have little or no spiritual significance.
Integration is the key to changing that mindset and thus “redeeming” the vast majority of our time, the hours devoted to work. When our work is a holy calling and a ministry, it’s loaded with spiritual significance. All that time we spend at work has spiritual value. So while balance alone might redeem some hours, integration can redeem far more!
Ken reveals how to find a deep integration between our work and faith such that all areas of our lives further God’s kingdom, glorify him, and fulfill our life mission. As we integrate our lives, he explains, we can experience the abundant life that Jesus offers us.
One of the things you'll notice in this book is that Ken takes on pervasive misconceptions stemming both from business and from church. He debunks these misguided beliefs and attitudes that hold us back and reveals a transformational new paradigm for purpose-driven work.
Ken breaks it down as saying we have a threefold ministry in our work life: pointing those around us to God (a ministry at work), serving and creating via the work itself (a ministry of work), and redeeming the practices, policies, and structures of institutions (a ministry to work).
This book offers a powerful picture of the integrated life in which our faith impacts every sphere, including our work in the marketplace. Drawing on his own experience and the example of others, Ken lays out practical applications that lead to abundant living through a far deeper connection between work and faith. To Purchase - Visit this link at Amazon.com
Integration is the key to changing that mindset and thus “redeeming” the vast majority of our time, the hours devoted to work. When our work is a holy calling and a ministry, it’s loaded with spiritual significance. All that time we spend at work has spiritual value. So while balance alone might redeem some hours, integration can redeem far more!
Ken reveals how to find a deep integration between our work and faith such that all areas of our lives further God’s kingdom, glorify him, and fulfill our life mission. As we integrate our lives, he explains, we can experience the abundant life that Jesus offers us.
One of the things you'll notice in this book is that Ken takes on pervasive misconceptions stemming both from business and from church. He debunks these misguided beliefs and attitudes that hold us back and reveals a transformational new paradigm for purpose-driven work.
Ken breaks it down as saying we have a threefold ministry in our work life: pointing those around us to God (a ministry at work), serving and creating via the work itself (a ministry of work), and redeeming the practices, policies, and structures of institutions (a ministry to work).
This book offers a powerful picture of the integrated life in which our faith impacts every sphere, including our work in the marketplace. Drawing on his own experience and the example of others, Ken lays out practical applications that lead to abundant living through a far deeper connection between work and faith. To Purchase - Visit this link at Amazon.com
More About Ken's Story
For over 20 years, Ken Eldred served as CEO of Inmac, a public company he founded. In that capacity, he was named Silicon Valley's "Entrepreneur of the Year." Ken has assisted in the founding of several other successful companies, including Ariba Technologies, which led the Internet business-to-business industry. He is currently CEO of Living Stones Foundation and is involved in ventures in the US, China, Europe, and India. Ken earned BA and MBA degrees from Stanford and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Belhaven College. His previous books, On Kingdom Business and God Is at Work, have received critical acclaim--including a Christianity Today Book Award. Ken and his wife Roberta have three sons and a growing number of grandchildren. They spend their time in Northern California and Colorado.
Labels: Alex Brubaker, Books and Articles, Ken Eldred
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Meshing Sunday and Monday: Commissioning people into the Workplace
Guest Post by Larry Peabody - When Daniel Rooney arrived in Ireland as the U.S. Ambassador, what would always remind him of the importance of his work? The official ceremony when Hillary Clinton swore him in. A public swearing-in event also recognized the value of Ben Bernanke's work as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. And each man, before the ceremony, had been publicly confirmed by the Senate.
In the early church, neglected widows needed food-servers. How did the church emphasize the significance of that task? Through the equivalent of a public swearing-in ceremony—prayer and the laying-on of hands. For centuries, churches have stressed the significance of the pastoral role in public ordination services. In a missionary commissioning service, you might hear the congregation repeat words like these: "With our support and encouragement, we commission John and Jane Doe to this ministry.”
How does your church recognize the importance of the firefighters, fingerprint technicians, and school teachers who represent Christ in your community?
Don R. Thomas, a San Francisco business development entrepreneur, said: "I am praying for and can envision a time when there will be a commissioning service every month for people in specific marketplace categories (from shoemakers to surgeons), to give each of them a sense that their church has affirmed them as ministers in their marketplace." (Quoted in Billy Graham's onlineDecision Magazine.)
Consider the commissioning testimony of Jim Stockard, a consultant for low-cost housing development. He recalled the event in a chapter he wrote for the book, The Laity in Ministry: The Whole People of God for the Whole World:
"For nearly forty years, Sunday church school teachers, leading laity and denominational leaders have been saying to me ‘Make your faith a seven-day-a-week way of life.' But I first heard those words in a life-changing way six years ago. They were spoken to me by a fellow member of the laity, in the midst of a worship service in our own church community. My own work was being lifted up in a special ceremony. In the space of this ten-minute celebration, I felt more challenged and supported than I ever had by any eloquent sermon, forceful Sunday church school lesson, or dynamic author. My own ministry was affirmed . . . . That ceremony, known as ‘commissioning' in our church, has nourished me over the years. I return to it periodically, read over the words, even discuss specifics with members of the congregation. Others in our community who have been commissioned tell me that their experiences have been the same.”
Why should your church even consider commissioning people in everyday jobs? Two words sum up the answer. First, affirmation. Christians "out there” need to have their work affirmed by their brothers and sisters in Christ. All week long, surrounded by unbelievers working for all the world's reasons, such Christ-followers can draw strength from public confirmation of their callings. Second, accountability. If my church publicly appoints me as an ambassador of Christ in, say, the local hospital, I will sense my responsibility to report back how the ministry is going and how fellow believers can pray for me.
Several years ago I attended a training conference held on the campus of a large church in Fresno, California. As the congregation drove out of that church parking lot Sunday by Sunday they saw this sign: "You are now entering the mission field.” That sounds very much like an assignment. I wonder, though, if any of those people had been publicly commissioned as representatives to their various mission fields. Had the assignment been followed up with affirmation and accountability?
But how might a church go about commissioning people who are not on the payroll as pastors or cross-cultural missionaries? In his book, Equippers Guide to Every-Member Ministry, R. Paul Stevens includes a suggested format for such a commissioning service.
Have you been commissioned or taken part in such a service? If so, please tell about it in the comment space below.
Labels: Larry Peabody
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