Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• Getting The Family Settled After a Job-Related Move. Russ Gehrlein writes “Starting a new job is hard enough, but relocating to an area where you have never lived and where you have no support systems established, such as family, friends, and church, is quite stressful for anyone. Where can the ordinary Christian look for assistance to be able to navigate these rough waters?”
• Mere Christians: Jenna Barrett. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast, Jordan Raynor visits with Jenna Barrett about how to discern what God wants to renew in your workplace, three positive things boasting in weakness produces, and Jordan’s new vocational dream for the New Earth.
• What’s Missing from the Faith and Work Movement? Bill Fullilove writes “And yet, at its idolatrous worst, the faith and work movement, if unmoored from broader biblical truth, will sprinkle the American dream with a gospel-flavored pixie dust, sneaking in selfishness as if it is gospel ministry.  I fear the modern faith and work movement will forget the balancing biblical truth: sacrifice.”

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 ~ High Road Leadership: Bringing People Together in a World That Divides by John Maxwell
• Quotes from the book Working in the Presence of God: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Work by Denise Daniels and Shannon Vandewarker

• You Will Enjoy the Fruit of Your Labor. Russ Gehrlein writes “God promises that there will come a day, perhaps sooner than you expect, either in this life or the life to come, when all things will be made new. There will be no sorrow, no pain, no limitations, or no injustice. The work that you did, with the Lord, in the Lord, and for the Lord will not have been done in vain.”
• Mere Christians: Joe Rigney. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast, Jordan Raynor visits with Joe Rigney about five practices for ensuring your work doesn’t become an idol, why “gratitude is the on-ramp to adoration” of God, and why Jesus said he is the “bread of life” and not the “grain of life.”
• 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).
• 20 Quick Tips to Improve Your Productivity. Tim Challies shares twenty real-world, time-tested tips to improve your productivity.
• Mere Christians: Jen Wilkin. On this episode of the Mere Christians podcast, Jordan Raynor visits with Jen Wilkin about how she envisions her work looking like on the New Earth, how the “dangerous light” in you makes every Christian’s work sacred, and why it’s significant that gold will be trampled on for eternity.
• What it Means to Wrap Reprimand in Mercy. Eric Schumacher writes “How does the Lord respond when his workers fail? In Genesis 3, the Lord makes a gracious promise. He promises to humble himself, join his workers in the mess, and deliver them from it.”
• How to Find a Workplace Mentor. Jacob Anderson writes “A few years ago, I changed my approach and went from never having a mentor to having four great mentors over the last five years. Through that journey, I’ve discovered four key lessons that can help Christians establish meaningful, fruitful mentor-mentee relationships at work.”

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

• Why not commission carpenters, lawyers, businesspeople, accountants, social workers, educators, medical professionals, and IT personnel? Such an approach would reflect to all within the church family a proper understanding of work, vocation, and the marketplace. Daryl Charles
• God sends us where He needs us to go so that we can do what He needs us to do with those who need the work we will provide. Russ Gehrlein
• Work of all kinds, whether with the hands or the mind, evidences our dignity as human beings—because it reflects the image of God the Creator in us. Tim Keller
• The way you serve your employer well is by being fully present, doing focused work that yields tremendous output. The way you serve your family well is by being fully present physically and mentally when you’re at home. In today’s distracted world, being fully present is one of the most valuable presents you can give. Jordan Raynor
• Maybe you can’t control the circumstances, but you can control your response to them. Choose a godly attitude and it will ripple out to those around you. That’s leadership. Jason Romano
• You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you cannot say that your work is the meaning of your life. If you make any work the purpose of your life—even if that work is church ministry—you create an idol that rivals God. Tim Keller
• We were built for work and the dignity it gives us as human beings, regardless of its status or pay. Tim Keller
• When people find their calling in their work it changes everything, because they change things for the people they serve. Dee Ann Turner
• Each of us has been given a sphere of influence, but it’s your choice whether you view your platform as something that lifts you up or as something you can use to lift up others. Jason Romano

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

High Road Leadership: Bringing People Together in a World That Divides by John Maxwell. Maxwell Leadership. 230 pages. 2024
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In his latest book, leadership expert John Maxwell tells us that leadership can be a blessing or a curse. It can help people rise to a better life, or it can cause people to fall into despair. Leadership rises when leaders possess good leadership skills and good values. It falls when leaders’ skills or values are poor. He writes that today he sees more falling than rising in the leadership world. His concern over this led to the writing of this book.

Maxwell states that kindness, consideration, and empathy used to comprise the minimum standard of conduct when we interacted with one another, but too many people no longer embrace and practice those values. He writes that there’s a significant difference between believing the other side’s ideas are wrong and believing their motives are wrong.

The author tells us that most today seem to possess a very strong confirmation bias. We seek out information and data that confirm what we already believe, ignoring all the rest. Instead, we need to possess a strong collaboration bias. As leaders, we need to bring people together to increase our understanding of each other and broaden our perspective. No matter the circumstances, if we want to be good leaders, we must come to the table, sit in the middle without choosing a side, listen to others, and work to bring people together. He tells us that if we can’t work with people who disagree with us, we will never become the leader we could be.

Maxwell tells us that we need to have a change of heart and mind in how we treat people. Instead of widening the chasm between us, we need to build bridges and move toward others while looking for common ground. The way to do that is to become a leader who takes the high road. He states that is what this book is about.

The author writes that if you want to help create a better world, commit to being a high-road leader. Treating others better than they treat you, and with consistency and without judgmentalism, is the best way to bring people together, and it’s the only way to make the changes we want to see in our world. Each of the chapters of the book teaches a leadership practice that will help you live on the high road. Each chapter ends with a short pathway to achieving that particular practice.

The author covers a wide range of topics in this book, including confirmation bias, common ground, valuing people, self-worth, your humanness, self-awareness, confident humility, generosity, high emotional capacity, resilience, listening, serving people, authenticity, character over reputation, accountability, big picture thinking, credibility, perspective, keeping score, bringing out the best in others and intentionality.

I’ve been reading John Maxwell’s books for about twenty years. High Road Leadership is a good new addition to his excellent leadership library.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

• The fastest and most proven way to bring people together in a world that divides is to find common ground.
• At the heart of high-road leadership is willingness to value all people. That is the start of everything.
• When you believe people can achieve, improve, be more than they are, and make a contribution to the world, you will value them and add value to them by investing in them.
• To be a high-road leader, you must do the right things for the right reasons.
• While most people go through their day wondering what they will receive, high-road leaders are preoccupied with the idea of what they will give.
• We are stewards of whatever we have in life. It’s up to us to use what we have access to for the benefit of others.
• The essence of high-road leadership is serving people and giving your best to them. That’s possible only if you have something to give and you possess the capacity to give it.
• Trust is the foundation of high-road leadership.
• If each of us would take accountability for our own actions, and we would require the people who lead us to do the same, the world would be transformed.
• To stay on the high road, we need to focus not on what we deserve but on how we can serve.
• If you’ll let people know how much you need them, they will help you and you will be able to share success and significance with them. That is empowering.
• As a high-road leader, you should be thinking continually how you can serve the people in your life.

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

Working in the Presence of God: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Work

We are reading Working in the Presence of God: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Work by Denise Daniels and Shannon Vandewarker. This book was recommended by the Nashville Institute for Faith + Work.

The Amazon description of the book reads in part:
“How do we invite God into our everyday lives? Working in the Presence of God discusses the incorporation of spiritual disciplines into the ordinary rhythms of everyday experience. God is already present and active, so by becoming aware of workday rhythms and focusing on where various spiritual practices might be implemented in our jobs, we can be transformed into Christ’s likeness through our work.”

This week we look at Chapter 5: Affirmation of Calling. Here are a few helpful quotes from this chapter:

• When we know we are accepted before the workday begins, no matter what happens in our work that day, a transformation takes place.
• Instead of being driven by the fear that we will not measure up, we work because we are loved by Christ. There is nothing we need to prove.
• Being grounded in who God says we are has incredible implications for how we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves, and how we act at work.
• Every Christ follower has the same general calling: to experience God’s love and saving grace poured out on us, and to live a life of obedience to God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Each person’s particular call includes all of the roles and tasks that are unique to them and done in service to God and others.
• Unlike particular callings, the direct call may or may not correspond with someone’s skill set or interests.
• Hearing the affirmation of God upon a particular calling can give us the confidence to go forward—even if it is difficult or not what we would automatically choose for ourselves.
• God’s affirmation can propel us into work that brings glory to the Lord and blessing to the people around us.