Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• Abby Karsten and Chris Gordon, Women’s Ministry: The Body at Work. On this episode of Working with Dan Doriani, Dan visits with Abby Karsten and Chris Gordon. Abby is the Women’s Ministry Leader of the Kirk of the Hills Church in St. Louis, and Christine (Chris) is an author of Bible studies for women and co-founder of At His Feet. They talk a bit about their work in their churches and on writing Bible study curriculum, but spend most of the conversation on a subject, quite literally, close to all our hearts: the body.
• Love + Work with Marcus Buckingham. On this episode of the Blanchard LeaderChat, Ken Blanchard visits with Marcus Buckingham who shares how to determine when you are at your best, so you can do what you love, and do it for the rest of your life. His newest book Love + Work focuses on bringing love, the most powerful of human emotions, back into your work and in life.
• Surprising Ways Leadership Is Changing. On this episode of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Stanley and Clay Scroggins discuss why we must adapt our leadership practices if we want to keep up.
• Sharing Christ at Work. Joshua Nangle writes “How do we share our faith with coworkers when our work environment discourages spiritual conversations?”

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:

• More links to interesting articles
• The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
• My Review of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John Maxwell
• Quotes from the book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic

• Further Observations on Work from Nehemiah. In this article, Russ Gehrlein highlights the connection between God’s presence and human work in the book of Nehemiah, which he calls Immanuel labor.
• Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
• Clarifying Your Purpose in the Third Third of Your Life, Part 1. In this article, Mark D. Roberts begins to address the questions “How can I find my purpose for this season of life? Is there a process that can help me become clear on the big ‘why’ of my life? And if so, what is that process?”
• 5 Ways to Find Purpose. Dan Rockwell writes “You’re fortunate if purpose interests you. You have opportunity to consider things beyond food and shelter.”
• How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge. On this episode of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Stanley visits with Clay Scroggins to discuss how anyone could leverage their influence, even when they lack authority.
• Mere Christians with Joni Eareckson Tada. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast (formerly The Call to Mastery), Jordan Raynor visits with Joni Eareckson Tada.
• Help! Should I Enforce Nonsensical Rules at Work? Greg Phelan responds to the question “My job requires me to oversee and enforce the implementation of various regulations. Some of those regulations are good, some are impractical, and some are so poorly thought out they actually contradict one another. My boss has basically told us which regulations to follow and which to ignore. His choices make sense, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being dishonest by not following the letter of the law—even when the law seems wrongheaded. What should I do?”
• How the Church Has Failed Business Leaders. Josiah Leuenberger writes “Jesus Christ is in the business of renewing all things (a process that begins first and foremost in each of our hearts) and every person who finds new life in him by grace through faith has the privilege of partnering with him in that mission. All good work presents followers of Jesus with opportunities to bring the light of Christ to the darkness of a broken world.”
• How to Respond to a Colleague Mourning Roe. Charlie Self responds to the question “WhenRoe v. Wade was overturned, I was thrilled. But I work in a liberal corporate setting, and I’m not sure how to address it at work. For example, there are times when my boss asks how everyone is doing, and a colleague or two bemoans the ruling. Do I just stay quiet and let them vent? Do I say I’m actually celebrating it? I don’t want to unnecessarily create a stir, but on the other hand, I do want to be faithful to the gospel.”
• How to Get Smart About Workforce Development. Jeff Haanen shares a helpful resource “How to Get Smart About Workforce Development in 10 Weeks”.

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• Following Christ means viewing our entire life (including our work) as service to God and others rather than as a means of getting something from this world. Jordan Raynor
• All creative and restorative work that we do in that world—no matter how big or small—represents a purposeful contribution to the cosmic mission of God. Scott Sauls
• God is present whenever and wherever we find ourselves working. Russ Gehrlein
• It is no small thing that when God identified work as essential to the human experience, he did so before the fall and the curse happened, not after. There was work in Paradise and it was good. And good it remains. Scott Sauls
• Your calling is not a destination. It is a journey that doesn’t end until you die. Jeff Goins
• What if we began to rethink “missions” altogether? In addition to commissioning pastors and missionaries for God’s work, we can also commission artists, physicians, homemakers, educators, baristas, athletes, parents, intercessors, attorneys, landscapers, and salespeople. Scott Sauls
• Our work can only be a calling if someone calls us to it, and we work for their agenda rather than our own. For the Christian, this means working for the sake of our Savior. What is his agenda? To glorify God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Jordan Raynor
• Your calling, when you find and embrace it, will result in the merging of your skills, talents, character traits, and experiences. John Maxwell
• An important aspect of Christian witness happens in the workspace, when believers become known as the bosses everyone wants to work for, the colleagues everyone wants to work alongside, and the employees everyone wants to hire. Scott Sauls

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John Maxwell. HarperCollins Leadership. 336 pages. 2022
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This is one of my favorite and most helpful, leadership books (second only to The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni), and the one I use more than any other in mentoring relationships. John Maxwell has revised about 30 percent of the book, as well as streamlining some of it for this 25^th Anniversary Edition. There are exercises at the end of each chapter to help you apply each law to your life. In addition, at the end of the book there is a leadership evaluation so that you can evaluate your aptitude for each law.
Each of the relatively short chapters, which contain stories that illustrate the law, cover one of the 21 laws, and are excellent to review and discuss in a mentoring session with an emerging leader. Here are the laws as well as two favorite quotes for each law:

THE LAW OF THE LID

• Leadership is the lid to your potential. The lower your leadership ability, the lower the lid on your potential. The higher your leadership ability, the higher the lid on your potential.
• The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be. Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others.

THE LAW OF INFLUENCE 

• Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less.
• If you can’t influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow, you are not a leader.

THE LAW OF PROCESS

• You may have been born with great natural gifts or few. That’s not important in the end, because the ability to lead is really a collection of skills, nearly all of which can be learned and improved.
• Successful leaders are learners. And the learning process is ongoing, a result of self-discipline and perseverance. The goal each day must be to get a little better, to build on the previous day’s progress.

THE LAW OF NAVIGATION

• One thing all leaders have in common is the ability to see more and before—they see more than others do because they see the big picture, which not all people grasp. And they see what’s coming before others do. This gives them an advantage when it comes to navigating for the people they lead.
• Balancing optimism and realism, intuition and planning, faith and fact can be very difficult. But that’s what it takes to be effective as a navigating leader.

THE LAW OF ADDITION

• The bottom line in leadership isn’t how far we advance ourselves, but how far we advance others. That is achieved by serving others and adding value to their lives.
• Leaders who add value by serving believe in their people before their people believe in them and serve others before they are served.

THE LAW OF SOLID GROUND

• Trust is the foundation of leadership.
• No leader can break trust with his people and expect to keep influencing them.

THE LAW OF RESPECT

• People don’t follow others by accident. They follow individuals whose leadership they respect.
• If you continually respect others and consistently lead them well, you will continue to have followers.

THE LAW OF INTUITION 

• Leaders must always be a few steps ahead of their best people, or they’re not really leading. They can do that only if they are able to read trends.
• Reading people is perhaps the most important intuitive skill leaders can possess.

THE LAW OF MAGNETISM

• Who you attract is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.
• If you want to attract better people, become the kind of person you desire.

THE LAW OF CONNECTION 

• Perhaps the most impacting thing you can do as a leader and communicator is to practice what you preach.
• People can tell when you genuinely care about them and value them as individuals, and it draws them to you.

THE LAW OF THE INNER CIRCLE

• Those closest to you determine the level of your success.
• Only if you reach your potential as a leader do your people have a chance to reach their potential.

THE LAW OF EMPOWERMENT

• When you equip those you lead to do something, you’re not just stepping back and giving them the freedom to succeed. You’re giving them the means to succeed.
• The main ingredient for empowering others is a high belief in people. If you believe in others, they will believe in themselves.

THE LAW OF THE PICTURE

• As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change and improve is me. My standards of excellence should be higher for myself than those I set for others.
• As you lead others, never forget that you set the tone for everyone you lead. The values you model will be shared by the people on your team.

THE LAW OF BUY-IN

• People buy into the leader first, then the leader’s vision.
• Your success is measured by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go. But you can do that only if the people first buy into you as a leader.

THE LAW OF VICTORY

• When the pressure is on, great leaders are at their best. Whatever is inside them comes to the surface. They find ways for their team to win.
• The best leaders feel compelled to rise to a challenge and do everything in their power to achieve victory for their people.

THE LAW OF THE BIG MO

• Momentum exaggerates a leader’s success and makes him look better than he really is.
• It takes a leader to create momentum.

THE LAW OF PRIORITIES

• As a leader, you should spend most of your time working in your areas of greatest strength.
• Leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone.

THE LAW OF SACRIFICE

• The heart of good leadership is sacrifice, not personal gain.
• The heart of leadership is putting others ahead of yourself.

THE LAW OF TIMING 

• Good leaders recognize that when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Timing is often the difference between success and failure in an endeavor.
• If you want your organization, department, or team to win, you must pay attention to timing. Only the right action at the right time will bring success. Anything else exacts a high price.

THE LAW OF EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

• The only way to lead leaders is to become a better leader yourself. If you keep growing and stay ahead of the people you lead, then you will be able to keep adding value to them.
• The best way for you to reach your potential, improve your team, help your organization, and make a difference is to attract, develop, and lead leaders rather than just followers.

THE LAW OF LEGACY

• Legacy is not leaving something for people. Legacy is leaving something in people.
• The best leaders lead today with tomorrow in mind by making sure they invest in leaders who will carry their legacy forward.

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

We are reading through You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic. The list of demands on our time seems to be never ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty–like you should always be doing one more thing.
Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach in You’re Only Human. He offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn’t create us to do it all.
Kapic explores the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency. He lays out a path to holistic living with healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world. He frees us from confusing our limitations with sin and instead invites us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community.
Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.

This week we look at Chapter 4: Why Does Physical Touch Matter? Here are a few quotes from the chapter:

• We are designed for communion with each other, and our physicality supplies a medium for that communion.
• A truly Christian spirituality must always also be a body-affirming spirituality.
• Our bodies and their inherent limits are a good gift from a good Creator.
• Our corporate worship time together changes us, and part of the way we are changed is through the way the church treats our physicality.
• God has made us for physical touch. Physicality isn’t the problem; the perversion and inappropriateness of abuse is the problem.
• I suspect we would do well to recapture this ancient public practice (foot washing) in our churches with more regular consistency: it is meant to foster humility, grace, physicality, and service, all realities that we urgently need in our individual and corporate lives.