Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• Patrick Lencioni Interview. On this edition of the H3 Leadership Podcast, Brad Lomenick interviews Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Advantage, and several other excellent books.
• Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is now available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
• How Do the Seven Army Values Align With Christian Values? Russ Gehrlein writes “The military culture is different from other workplaces.  However, there are many similarities as well.  Let me describe the importance of organizational values, paint a picture of the ones that are ingrained in those who work for the U.S. Army, and show how they support biblical values.”
• Why We Get Up in the Morning Shouldn’t Differ from Sunday to Monday. Charlie Peacock reviews Steve Garber’s book The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work, one of my favorites of 2020. He writes “If following Christ as a coworker in the new, unfolding reality is our true vocation, then everything and everyone matter. Living a seamless life tells your family, neighbors, and coworkers what you value. For Garber, it answers the question—incrementally, over time—of “why we get up in the morning.”

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:

• More links to interesting articles
• The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
• My Review of The Heart of a Leader: Insights on the Art of Influence by Ken Blanchard
• Snippets from Os Guinness’ book “The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose For Your Life”

• I’m in Sales. How Can I Love Those I’m Selling to? Rachael Starke responds to this question, writing “When we reframe our thinking about sales as a way of living out the second greatest commandment—to love our neighbor as we love ourselves—we can pave a path toward sales success that truly honors God.”
• The 50 Best Leadership Quotes from John Maxwell’s Live2Lead Brian Dodd shares these helpful quotes from the Live2Lead Conference, an event I’ve enjoyed attending in the past.
• A True Three-Dimensional Approach to Life. Art Lindsey writes “Christians should know their gifts and have an appropriate outlet for them, in order to experience the energy and creativity that God has given them. Responding to God, others, and creation are aspects of each person’s humanity.”
• Always a General: The Leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower in War and in Peace. In this address, Albert Mohler addresses the leadership lessons that we can learn from the great World War II general and 35thpresident of the United States.
• Here Comes 2021: 7 Things Every Leader Should Be Preparing for Now. Carey Nieuwhof writes “Leaders who prepare to lead in the real world tend to find greater success than leaders who prepare for an ideal world that doesn’t exist.”
• Paul Tripp on 12 Leadership Principles for the Local Church. Justin Taylor shares these video introductions to Paul Tripp’s excellent new book Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church. 
• The Hope of the Gospel for Our Stress at Work. This article from the Nashville Institute for Faith + Work states “Our deepest worries at work matter deeply to God. We can find comfort in a Savior who does not casually dismiss our fears or chide us for our anxieties. Instead, God’s intimate response to our stress is that He promises to be with us in the midst of it.”
• Understanding Our Vocations as Culture Makers. Jacqueline Isaacs writes “As Christians, we know that while things in our world are broken now, Christ is working through us to reweave shalom—returning things to the way they ought to be.”
• How to Lead and How to Follow. Tim Challies writes “Each of us leads and each of us follows. Each of us is called to lead and to follow in a distinctly Christian way. According to Jesus’s Golden Rule, that must look something like this: Lead in the way you’d want to be led; follow in the way you’d want to be followed.”
• The Virtues of a Leader, Part 1. Virtues are important in every area of life, but they are especially important within the context of leadership. On this episode of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Stanley visits with Habitat International CEO Jonathan Reckford to discuss the virtues of a leader.
• The Reach Records Origin Story. On this episode of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast, Henry Kaestner talks to Lecrae and Ben Washer about the beginning of Reach Records.
  

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• Your career is never going to die for you. If you don’t fulfill its dictates, it will punish you all your life. Tim Keller
• What distinguishes a great leader from a mediocre one is that a great leader has a heart for his people. Kevin Leman and Bill Pentak
• It’s just as important to know who you’re not and what you aren’t called to, as it is to know who you are and what you are called to. Because the clearer your sense of identity and calling are, the more you can focus on what God made you to do. John Mark Comer
• The real question of leadership is this: Are you making things better for the people who follow you? John Maxwell
• Do one thing. And do one thing well. And do that one thing well as an act of service and love for the world and to the glory of God. John Mark Comer
• There is no greater calling than to make my workplace my mission field. Regi Campbell
• God is always preparing us through our present successes and failures. Tim Keller
• Every ambition and every achievement must bow to the lordship and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul Tripp
• When you show those you lead that you care about their entire lives, both at work and outside of work, you show them value. Jason Romano
  

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The Heart of a Leader: Insights on the Art of Influence by Ken Blanchard. David C. Cook. 197 pages. 2010. 
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This book is comprised of Ken Blanchard’s favorite sayings – most of which come from his books – along with a short reading accompanying the quote. Blanchard tells us that anytime you use your influence to affect the thoughts and actions of others, you are engaging in leadership.
This is a book that you can read at your own pace. I chose to read a few “chapters” (quote and short reading) each day. Here are 20 of my favorite quotes from the book:

1. The more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated. Accentuating the positive and redirecting the negative are the best tools for increasing productivity.
2. An effective leader will make it a priority to help his or her people produce good results in two ways: making sure people know what their goals are and doing everything possible to support, encourage, and coach them to accomplish those goals.
3. No one of us is as smart as all of us.
4. When you stop learning, you stop leading.
5. Leadership is a high calling.
6. Leading at a higher level is the process of achieving worthwhile results while acting with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of all involved. It’s only when you realize that it’s not about you that you begin to lead at a higher level.
7. Good leaders are committed to helping their people win. When someone fails, they accept responsibility for that failure.
8. The main job of a leader is to help his or her people succeed in accomplishing their goals. And when people accomplish their goals and win, everyone wins.
9. Think more about your people, and they will think more of themselves.
10. Character is following through on decisions.
11. Vision is knowing who you are, where you’re going, and what will guide your journey.
12. An important way to motivate your people is to make sure they know where they are going. See that each person’s goals are clearly defined and that he or she knows what it means to perform well. This will give people a clear focus for their energy and put them on the road to becoming high-performing, empowered producers.
13. Leading people is the opposite of trying to control them; it’s about gaining their trust through your integrity, developing their potential through your partnership, and motivating them through your affirmation.
14. The only job security you have today is your commitment to continuous personal improvement.
15. Servant leadership is more about character than style.
16. The primary biblical image of servant leadership is that of the shepherd. The flock is not there for the sake of the shepherd; the shepherd is there for the sake of the flock.
17. Am I a servant leader or a self-serving leader?
18. Leadership is not something you do to people. It’s something you do with people.
19. True servant leaders want feedback because they are anxious to know whether their interactions with their people are helpful and effective.
20. To be successful as a leader, you must know the values of your organization and live by them. You’ve got to walk the talk.
    

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Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling God’s Purpose For Your Life by Os Guinness is the best book on calling for the Christian that I have read. The first time I read it was in Dr. Douglass’s wonderful “Spiritual and Ministry Formation” class at Covenant Seminary in 2013. In 2018, on the 20th anniversary of the book, Guinness published a revised and updated edition.

Here are a few takeaways from Chapter 27: Let All Your Thinks Be Thanks. Here are a few takeaways from the chapter:

• Calling is a reminder for followers of Christ that nothing in life should be taken for granted; everything in life must be received with gratitude.
• Calling contributes to faith its own sense of wonder and gratitude because of its insistence on God’s sovereign initiative and grace in the call.
• The motive, the initiative, and the action of calling are entirely God’s and all of grace.
• The link between calling and gratitude, chosenness and wonder touches our lives practically in two main places. First, it reminds us that with so much grace given to us, we should be givers of grace to others. Second, the link between calling and grace reminds us that gratitude must be our first and constant response to God.
• Adapting G. K. Chesterton, we may state the motto of every follower of Christ moved to wonder by the mystery and grace of God’s calling: “Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace.”