Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles
- Does my Earthly Work have Eternal Value? (Part 1). Russ Gehrlein writes “This topic is worth considering, especially if you think that what you do all day is not worth much. Perhaps there is more lasting value to your work than you think.
- Working for the Weekend? Part 1. Robert Covolo writes “No, we don’t work for the weekend. Nor do we make our work a weekend. Rather, we embrace both work and rest as those made in the image of the God who does both.”
- Reassessing Our Relationship with Work and Rest. Michaela O’Donnell writes “We will worship God, the one who both works and rests, and gives us the good gift of a rhythm that includes both. In this, our sense of meaning-making returns to the one who made us and who invites us to align with the kingdom in all that we do.”
- The Emotional Journey of the Entrepreneur. Jeff Haanen writes “We need to acknowledge that entrepreneurs don’t just change the world; they themselves are being changed by the world around them. This move toward self-awareness is the first step toward living healthier emotional and spiritual lives as entrepreneurs.”
Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:
- More links to interesting articles
- The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
- Faith and Work Book Review ~ Leading With a Limp by Dan Allender
- Quotes from the book Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society by Amy Sherman.
I was thinking recently about how I started my leadership journey, and on the surface, it just doesn’t make any sense. After all, I was an introvert, very shy and lacking confidence, as a comment from a junior high school teacher on a report card had pointed out years earlier. At the time, I was in college and working as a part-time minimum wage cleaner, cleaning the corporate headquarters building for the organization I would eventually spend my nearly 38-year career with. I didn’t have dreams of going into leadership. In fact, I don’t recall having any clear thoughts on what I wanted to do vocationally after I got out of college. The degree I was working on was in business administration, with a concentration in marketing. I had no idea that I would end up spending my entire career in leadership, along with serving in leadership in the church for nearly 27 years now. But God had a plan. 
Our Father in Heaven,
I remember reading David Wells’ excellent 1993 book No Place for Truth: Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology, in which he wrote that the average pastor stayed at a church about three years. These days, the average is only slightly longer, about four years. This month, our church will celebrate 30 years of faithful service from our lead pastor, Bob Smart.
When the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America was formed in 1788, it adopted (with minor revisions) the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms (1647), as its secondary standards (the Bible itself being the only infallible rule of faith and practice). As an officer in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), I took a vow to “sincerely receive and adopt” these confessional documents “as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.”
One of my favorite John Maxwell quotes (though he certainly wasn’t the first to say it) is “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I love the quote and have repeated it often to those I mentor over the years. This statement is true in many walks of life, as a friend, pastor, mentor, politician, etc. In this article, I want to look at what this means between a leader and their team members. Teams generally aren’t going to be impressed with a leader’s prior experience, results, reputation and advanced degrees until they are convinced that the leader cares about them as an individual. What are some ways that a leader shows their followers that they care about them? Here are 4 ways: