Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles
- Retirement Mentor: A New Type of Mentor. Hilda R. Davis writes “Consider the idea of connecting to a “retirement mentor” who could influence your next steps and encourage you to flourish and bear fruit as you age.”
- A Leader Worth Following. My new book A Leader Work Following: 40 Key Leadership Attributes and Applications to Masteris available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. Read a sample of the book (found under the book cover in the above link).
- A Reflection on Job Security. Russ Gehrlein writes “Work is always going to be harder than we expect. Major job changes can cause us to be anxious about our loss of income or make us afraid of the unknown. The only thing we can do is to remember that God is with us and has promised to provide for our need to support our family.”
- What We Need to Learn and Unlearn About Work. Renita Reed-Thomson writes “After teaching about the theology of work for twenty years and struggling to truly convey to people the importance of what they do every day, I have found it immensely helpful to compare their work to the understanding of common and saving grace.”
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 ~ Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes to Be Great by Dan Hurley and Ian O’Connor
- Quotes from the book Creation Regained: Biblical Basis for a Reformational Worldview by Albert Wolters
- 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 Relationships Between Work and Rest. Bill and Dana Wichterman write “The biblical vision is that we rest in order to work rather than working in order to rest.”
- A Short-Timer’s Attitude. Russ Gehrlein writes “What if I did an experiment and stopped counting the months I have left until my projected retirement? Could I just focus on doing the best job I can between now and then, “working as unto the Lord”?”
- Observing the Sabbath Starts on Monday Morning. In this short video, Guy Waters discusses a counter-intuitive idea about observing the Sabbath.
- When Vocational Calling Changes Due to Moral Failure. Russ Gehrlein writes “Does God have a message of hope for those whose calling was altered because of what they did? Has God left these people with no options to find a new vocation and support themselves? Can God use them elsewhere?”
- The Power of Meekness at Work. Howard Graham writes “Meekness is the most important superpower at work because meekness is power under control.”
- How Can I Bring My Faith to Someone Else’s Workplace? Russ Gehrlein writes “I invite you to consider how we can take our understanding and experience of the theology of work into others’ workplaces. We want to be able to minister to others as the Holy Spirit leads to glorify the God who is very much present in our work, gives work meaning, and helps us along the way.”
- Coding for Christ: Is Remote Work Righteous? Brandon Cobb writes “Remote work has an expiration not because it lacks utility, but because it lacks totality. It cannot bear the full weight of human vocation.”
- Your daily work is ultimately an act of worship to the God who called and equipped you to do it – no matter what kind of work it is. Tim Keller
- What wisdom would the Bible give us in choosing our work? First, if we have the luxury of options, we would want to choose work that we can do well. Second, because the main purpose of work is to serve the world, we would want to choose work that benefits others. Tim Keller
- There may be no better way to love your neighbor, whether you are writing parking tickets, software, or books, than to simply do your work. Tim Keller
- Giftedness does not stand alone in helping us discern our callings. It lines up alongside other factors, such as family heritage, our life opportunities, God’s guidance, and our unquestioning readiness to do what he shows. Os Guinness
- In the Christian view, the way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident, but because the Creator gave them to you. Tim Keller
- Work of all kinds, whether with hands or mind, evidences our dignity as human beings—because it reflects the image of God the Creator in us. Tim Keller
- If God exists then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling can matter forever. Tim Keller
- Our vocations are one avenue for doing God’s work in the world. Tim Keller
- Joy in labor is possible only when you are thankful that God has provided you with a job and the ability to work. Paul Tripp
FAITH, WORK AND LEADERSHIP BOOK REVIEW:
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This book is a memoir from Dan Hurley, the coach of the University of Connecticut Men’s basketball team, which won back-to-back national titles in 2023 and 2024. In the final chapter, which was worth the price of the book for me, Hurley shares some of his leadership philosophies.
Before reading this book, I knew Hurley primarily for his sideline antics. But there is much more to his story. The book begins with Hurley being courted by the Los Angeles Lakers, whose offer to become their head coach he would eventually turn down to stay at Connecticut. He tells of the expectations upon him – as the son of Bob Sr., perhaps the greatest high school coach ever, who won twenty-eight state championships and four national championships, along with eight undefeated seasons at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey – and the brother of Duke All-American, two-time NCAA champion, NBA player Bobby Hurley. He writes that because of that, everything about his life was public.
Dan would play at St. Anthony and go on to play at Seton Hall. It was there that he nearly had a nervous breakdown. He was significantly helped by Sister Catherine Waters, director of Seton Hall’s counseling services. He was in counseling to deal with low self-esteem and depression. Throughout the book, Hurley is transparent about his mental health and anxiety issues.
After college, he took a job at St. Anthony’s, teaching driver’s education and sex education and health. He took the job because it included a position as second assistant for his father. He later accepted a job at Rutgers as a restricted earnings coach, and was fired when the head coach was fired two years later. He then took a job as the coach of St. Benedict’s Prep of Newark.
Finances were a significant issue with Hurley and wife Andrea, and at one time they nearly divorced.
Hurley won two prep state titles in his first two seasons as head coach. He writes that his burning hunger to be number one came from wanting to be compared favorably with his father.
He would then take the head coaching job at Wagner College. His first hire as an assistant coach was brother Bob, who is now the head coach at Arizona State.
Later, he would take the head coaching job at Rhode Island and money was no longer a problem. Brother Bob agreed to join him to help turn things around. Rhode Island would make the NCAA tournament two years in a row, but after a conversation with Duke’s Coack K, he realized that it would be next to impossible to win a national title at Rhode Island. He then was hired as the head coach at UConn, which had an excellent tradition of winning national titles.
He writes of learning to be calm despite his competitive fire and raging intensity through his Catholic faith, exercise, meditation, journaling, and prayer.
Hurley would go on to win back-to-back NCAA titles in 2023 and 2024, before making the NCAA tournament in 2025, but falling just short against eventual champion Florida. He had periods when he wanted to quit, as coaching takes so much out of him. But he is confident, writing that he will win a third national championship.
He writes in detail about his “Maui meltdown” during a Thanksgiving tournament in 2024. He writes that he was oblivious to how big a story his behavior was becoming nationally. He tells us that he will apologize for a sideline or hallway outburst here or there, but he will never apologize for how he inspires the young men in his huddle.
I enjoyed reading about Hurley’s life, his successes and his struggles. In the final chapter of the book Hurley shares his leadership philosophies, which he concludes by stating that is a stone-cold fact that his style of leadership produces great teams and great people. Again, for me, that chapter was worth the price of the book.
I think this book will be enjoyed by college basketball fans and those would will want to learn Hurley’s leadership keys to success. Warning: this book contains a significant amount of adult language.
Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?
This book is recommended by the Center for Faith & Work. They write:
“Few contemporary books have been cited as often by those who are writing about taking up callings and vocations faithfully. This serious little book walks us through the key Biblical themes of the goodness of creation, the seriousness of the fall into sin, the decisive redemption gained by Christ, and the implications of working out the promised hope for a creation-wide restoration. With the keen eye of a philosopher and the passion of a Bible scholar, Wolter’s offers one of the definitive, concise books about a Christian worldview. One of the most important books for those of us in CFW and highly recommended to understand a uniquely Christian view of cultural and vocational engagement.”
As we read through this this book, we now look at Chapter 3: Fall. Here are a few helpful quotes from this chapter:
- Everywhere we turn, the good possibilities of God’s creation are misused, warped, and exploited for sinful ends.
- It is one of the unique and distinctive features of the Bible’s teaching on the human situation that all evil and perversity in the world is ultimately the result of humanity’s fall, of its refusal to live according to the good ordinances of God’s creation.
- Human disobedience and guilt lie in the last analysis at the root of all the troubles on earth.
- All of creation participates in the drama of man’s fall and ultimate liberation in Christ.
- World designates the totality of sin-infected creation. Wherever human sinfulness bends or twists or distorts God’s good creation, there we find the “world.”
- Despite the role played by Satan, it is humanity that bears the blame for making the distorted creation groan.
- The sum total of evil and rottenness in creation (i.e., “the world”) is therefore the result of both human sin and the creature’s enslavement to the devil.
- Every area of the created world cries out for redemption and the coming of the kingdom of God.