Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• God Still Uses Cracked Pots. Russ Gehrlein writes “I believe that many Christians do not experience God’s presence at work because they feel unworthy.”
• Why Jesus is the Greatest Leadership Model of All Time. Phyllis Hendry Halverson writes “There is no need to search further. We have the perfect leadership role model in Jesus. We simply need to follow him and allow him to work in us and through us.”
• A Good Job for Life. Howard Graham writes “Followers of Jesus are better equipped in the marketplace than those who are not, because they have the most meaningful and purpose filled job description.”
• Mere Christians: Skye Jethani. Skye Jethani joins Jordan Raynor on the Mere Christians podcast to talk about what heaven means for your work today.
• Mere Christians: Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman, author of “The Five Love Languages”, joins Jordan Raynor on the Mere Christians podcast to talk about how to learn the language of your co-workers without even asking.

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 ~ Women, Work & Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World by Joanna Meyer
• Quotes from the book Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society by Amy Sherman.

• 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).
• The Calling to Pursue Your Educational Goals. Russ Gehrlein writes “If you have not thought seriously about going to school or picking up where you left off in quite a while because you were forced to give up your dream, I strongly encourage you to prayerfully consider this year what the Lord is calling you to do, and take positive steps in faith to move in that direction.”
• Working with Dan Doriani: Matt Darr and Peggy Demetri. Building and maintaining work culture is one of the most challenging, yet important, facets of running a successful business. Matt Darr and Peggy Demetri have years of experience in doing exactly that. They share insights and lessons learned on how best to cultivate the kind of healthy work environment that allows employees to thrive. On this episode of Working with Dan Doriani, Dan talks with Matt and Peggy, and explores workplace culture, building a team and how their faith makes them better leaders.
• Does the Bible Really Tell Us to Work Shrewdly? What does it mean to be shrewd? Does the Bible really tell us to work in this way? In this episode of the Denver Institute Faith & Work podcast, Joanna Meyer and Ross Chapman discuss Luke 16 The Parable of the Shrewd Manager with Dr. Ryan Tafilowski, and learn more about how this quality can inform our work.
• My Book Reviews of Books on Work and How to Integrate Your Faith and Work. Enjoy these book reviews from my Faith and Work Library.
• Mere Christians: Dr. Darrell Cosden. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast, Jordan Raynor visits with Dr. Darrell Cosden, author of The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, about what the nail scars in Jesus’s hands mean for the work of your hands.
• 6 Prayers for Work. Jonah McKeown writes “Incorporating prayers for our work into our daily routine can provide us with a sense of peace, guidance, and renewed energy. Whether you seek prayers for work success, prayers before work, or prayers for work-related stress, these prayers can help you find solace and strength in the midst of your professional journey.”

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

• When we begin to realize that there’s dignity in every vocation, then we realize that every job has a purpose of serving others and bringing glory to God. Bryan Chapell
• The Lord’s work is anything on which we might lay our hands or focus our minds that is pleasing to God, as we work for him rather than in order to impress others (Colossians 3:23). This can be within the body of Christ or in service to the world around us. Alistair Begg
• Work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives. Tim Keller
• The great leader is seen as a servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness. Robert Greenleaf
• Perhaps one of the keys to avoid workaholism and find a way to balance the priorities God lays out before us as Christ followers is to understand our very real limitations as human beings. Russ Gehrlein
• Work is the inescapable calling of people made in the image of God. You cannot have a healthy or successful life devoid of a commitment to work. Paul Tripp
• Answering the call of our Creator is “the ultimate why” for living, the highest source of purpose in human existence. Apart from such a calling, all hope of discovering purpose will end in disappointment. Os Guinness
• No one has ever been called to do something he or she wasn’t suited for. Calling always matches who you are. John Maxwell
• Sabbath is the key to restoring not only our relationship to work but to our hearts, our communities, and God himself. Jeff Haanen

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

Women, Work & Calling: Step Into Your Place in God’s World by Joanna Meyer. IVP. 118 pages. 2023
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This helpful book was written by Joanna Meyer, Director of Public Engagement at the Denver Institute for Faith & Work, host of the Faith & Work Podcast, and founder of Women, Work, and Calling, a national initiative that equips Christian women for godly influence in public life. The author’s goal with the book is to establish, inspire, and equip women to fully live their calling in response to God’s love and in service to others. While primarily written for women, it would be a good book for men to read as well, to learn more about women and their work.

The book is organized as follows:

Part One: The author establishes a biblical framework for thinking about your various roles. She cuts through the cultural baggage surrounding women’s roles to help you understand your calling and what it means for your daily work.

Part Two: This section turns inward to help you build the spiritual and emotional strength you need to thrive in your roles.

Part Three: This section gets practical by addressing common challenges women face in their work and leadership.

Part Four: The book concludes with a look at the relationships you need to grow a thriving network.

Each of the relatively short twenty chapters ends with a “Reflect” section, which helps the reader go deeper and apply what was covered in that chapter.

The author brings in teaching from those she has interviewed on the Faith & Work Podcast, as well as those who have spoken at Women, Work and Calling events. Among the subjects covered in this book are a vision for women’s work, calling, limiting beliefs, biblical humility, soul care, your brand, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, authenticity, vocational power, perfectionism, leading up, mentoring, gender dynamics in the workplace and leaning hard.

This would be a good book to read individually, or as a group, using the “Reflect” section at the end of each chapter.

Below are 15 of my favorite quotes from the book:

• As our roles in public life have grown, the church’s vision for women’s work and calling has not grown with us.
• Through our daily work, in whatever form it takes, we have been entrusted with a corner of creation that awaits God’s loving influence.
• We need a vision for women’s work that is broad enough for the unique situations we face.
• Well-meaning Christians may miss the complete vision God has for women and their work. This often happens when we divide work into private (home-based) and public (marketplace or civic) spheres.
• One of the beauties of calling is that it offers a through line, an invisible thread that binds your story together across the seasons and stages of your life.
• Living your call does not depend on God declaring a single, glorious vision for your life. Rather, it’s a lifelong journey that combines spiritual discernment, courage, and creativity as God helps you become the woman he designed you to be.
• One of the best kept secrets of spiritual growth is the critical role your daily work plays in your development.
• Soul care is about connecting with God’s presence as he is with you and for you as you go about your work.
• One way to cultivate a healthy soul is to converse with God throughout your day. You can rest in him moment by moment, crisis by crisis, decision by decision, and be reassured of his love, care, sovereignty, and goodness.
• In the world in which you live and work, you have a brand whether you actively cultivate it or not. Your brand is your reputation. It’s the impression you leave in writing, in personal interactions, and on social media.
• Humble confidence comes from knowing what is true of you: you are made in the image of God, and he has given you specific strengths for the roles he intends you to fill.
• Your daily work is one of the most profound ways you can serve using God’s power for his glory and others’ good.
• When good is never good enough, you will overwork to the point of exhaustion even though, on this side of heaven, perfection is not achievable.
• Rather than looking for a single person to develop you, envision gathering a constellation of individuals who support you for various purposes and seasons of your life.
• When Christian women encounter barriers to growing their influence and resources, their gifts will be less broadly distributed in the world.

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

We are reading Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society by Amy Sherman. Sherman is also the author of Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, a book I first read in my “Calling, Vocation and Work” class at Covenant Seminary.

Every corner, every square inch of society can flourish as God intends, and Christians of any vocation can become agents of that flourishing. In this book, Sherman offers a multifaceted, biblically grounded framework for enacting God’s call to seek the shalom of our communities in six arenas of civilizational life (The Good, The True, The Beautiful, The Just, The Prosperous, and The Sustainable).

This week we look at Chapter 14: The Sustainable Flourishing in the Realm of Natural and Physical Health. Here are a few helpful quotes from the chapter:

• Scientists are telling us that people health and planet health are inextricably connected. Sociologists with the Thriving Cities Group agree.
• God desires his creation and his children to flourish.
• God loves and delights in his creation. This reality shines through the Scriptures in many ways.
• God designed us to need the physical and spiritual ceasing of the sabbath.
• God designed us to be in a mutually dependent relationship with the physical world. We need the earth’s waters and crops, and creation needs us to achieve its full potential.
• For nature to flourish, it needs help from God (to send rain) and from humans (to work the ground).
• People are charged with ruling creation, but this dominion is to be servant-hearted.