Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• A Good Tired. Daniel Darling writes “There is a difference between a frustrated “sick of this mess” type of fatigue and what my dad used to call “A good tired”.
• 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).
• Does Every Person Have a Calling? Gene Veith writes “We usually think of vocation and calling in terms of a job or profession, but it means much more than that.”
• Does God Have One Perfect Job for You? Megan Taylor writes “While it is true that God knows our career path from entry to retirement, the idea that there is a “perfect job” out there for you may stem from a faulty understanding of God’s will in relation to your calling.”

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 ~ Beyond Basketball: Coach K’s Keywords for Success by Mike Krzyzewski with Jamie Spotola
• Quotes from the book Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels

• 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).
• What Might Exceptional Leadership Look Like? Dave Kraft writes “What does excellent leadership really look like? How would you personally define excellent leadership? What qualities are high on your list?”
• Voices from the Workplace: In the Hospital with Andy and Barb Wood. In this episode of Voices from the Workplace, Joanna Meyer talks with husband and wife Barb and Andy Wood about their unexpected mid-career transition from ministry into healthcare.
• The Formative Power of Work: Learning From The French. Robert Covolo explore four ways Paul implies the formative power of work in Colossians 3:22–4:1.
• Dave Harvey | The Connecting Podcast. Paul Tripp states “Dave Harvey is my guest on The Connecting Podcast this month. His devastating life experiences and seasoned biblical wisdom make this a can’t-miss episode. He’s one of my longest and dearest friends and peers in ministry.”
• Moral Failure, Godly Character, and the Challenges of Pastoral Leadership. Dan Doriani writes “Why are so many pastors failing in these ways? Is moral failure among pastors really as much of an epidemic as it seems? How can we have confidence in our leaders amid all the bad news?”
• Voices from the Workplace: The Work of Care with Dr. Matt Mahlberg & Cindy Chang Mahlberg. In this episode of the Faith & Work podcast, host Ross Chapman continues the “Voices from the Workplace” series with a deep dive into the world of healthcare. He sits down with husband-and-wife team Dr. Matt Mahlberg and Cindy Chang Mahlberg, who lead the Colorado Center for Dermatology and Skin Surgery. Together, they explore the delicate balance between high-level medical expertise and the “business of caring.”
• Faith and Work When I’m Out of Work. Brandon Cobb writes “Joblessness can leave our faith floundering. It exposes how much of our stability was tethered to a title. To help us withstand this, here are ways to stay grounded. What follows is not a formula for quick reemployment. It is a pastoral invitation to steward this season faithfully. While you fight for a decision on your next career move, here are other choices that will set you up to honor God well in your next role.”

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

• If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. Martin Luther King Jr.
• To violate the rhythm of work and rest eventually leads to chaos. Tim Keller
• It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. W. Tozer
• The choice that everyone in Christian leadership must make is the choice between leading like Jesus, by pursuing Jesus-like greatness, and leading like the world, by pursuing what the world defines as greatness. Rico Tice
• Mission includes our vocations and not just church ministry. Tim Keller
• As an image bearer, we are to be fruitful, including in our work. Tom Nelson 
• The problem of the workaholic, for example, is not that we love work too much, but that we love God too little, relative to our career. Tim Keller
• Work is not merely about making a living while avoiding sin; it’s about extending the kingdom rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bryan Chapell
• Vocation entails service in the place where God has given gifts and a desire to make a difference in this world. Dan Doriani

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:
Beyond Basketball: Coach K’s Keywords for Success by Mike Krzyzewski with Jamie Spotola. Business Plus. 193 pages. 2006
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In this book, Coach K, one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time, shares forty words that are important in his life. In addition to an explanation of the meaning of each word, he offers a story from his life to accompany each word. He writes that the stories encapsulate not only a definition but a moment in his life in which the word’s true meaning became abundantly clear. The way the book is structured with short chapters is similar to how I organized my book A Leader Worth Following: 40 Key Leadership Attributes and Applications to Master.

The short chapters are such that you can read one or a few a day, almost like you would with a daily devotional.

I enjoyed this book. Here are twenty helpful leadership quotes from the book:

• Adversity can teach you more about yourself than any success, and overcoming an obstacle can sometimes feel even better than achieving an easy victory.
• As a leader and a career-oriented individual, you must take care not to allow one aspect of your life to so consume you that you neglect the others.
• Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication.
• Having courage means boldly pursuing your dreams, no matter what the consequences may be.
• Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined. We all have the capacity to imagine amazing things, but you need courage to take those often-frightening steps toward making your dreams a reality. Your time will come.
• Dependability is the ability to be relied upon. To always be there trying to do your best.
• When you are enthusiastic, you are a catalyst to those around you.
• Define your own success and failure; only you know whether or not you have given it your all. The persistent pursuit of excellence determines winners, not the score of the game.
• Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things that you have always done.
• Failure cannot be your final destination; rather, you can use it to shatter limits. It is merely a stepping-stone on your journey to greatness.
• To help turn fundamentals into habit requires intensive, intelligent, and repetitive action. If any one of these elements is missing, something will be missing from the foundation of your team.
• Integrity means doing what is right whether you are alone or with a group, doing the right thing no matter what the rewards or the consequences may be. It means putting your base of ethics into action.
• Whatever you have just done is not nearly as important as what you are doing right now.
• When you are passionate, you always have your destination in sight and you are not distracted by obstacles.
• Poise requires maturity. It’s about remaining mentally and emotionally balanced all the time, no matter what is taking place around you.
• Pride means ensuring that anything that you do, anything that has your name on it, is done right.
• Keep your standards intact, keep the bar set high, and continue to try your very best every day to meet those standards. If you do that, you can always be proud of the work that you do.
• Trust is developed through open and honest communication and, once established, creates a shared vision for a common goal.
• Ambition alone is not enough. That ambition must be coupled with hard work for success to be achieved.
• Work is a necessity if you want to improve. It is the road you have to follow to become better.

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Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?
Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels 

Please join us in reading this book on faith and work.
From the Amazon description:

“In a world where workplaces are becoming increasingly diverse, Working for Better by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels offers a timely guide for Christians navigating the modern faith-at-work landscape. Drawing from over twenty years of research and personal insights, Working for Better presents a groundbreaking exploration of how to express Christian faith in professional settings without compromising beliefs or alienating others.
Through detailed studies involving focus groups, surveys of more than 15,000 workers, and interviews with over 300 individuals, Ecklund and Daniels identify five key tensions in the faith-at-work movement. With compelling stories and practical applications, Working for Better addresses the need for Christian workers and leaders to adapt to cultural shifts, offering guidance for a more redemptive presence at work. Each chapter concludes with thought-provoking questions for individual reflection or group discussion, making this book an essential resource for anyone seeking to integrate faith with their professional life. Whether you’re a Christian worker, workplace leader, or pastor guiding others, Working for Better invites you to consider how to flourish in a rapidly changing world.
As workplaces continue to evolve, the ability to maintain one’s spiritual values while contributing positively to the organizational culture becomes ever more crucial. Working for Better not only equips readers with the wisdom and tools needed to face such challenges but also inspires them to become agents of change, promoting a more inclusive and harmonious work environment.”

This week, we look at Chapter 1: A Look at How the World is Changing. Here are a few quotes from the chapter that I found helpful:

• At all levels of business in the United States, employees no longer want to leave their faith behind when they go to work. As workers increasingly bring their faith to work, it creates new challenges for leaders in handling religion in the workplace.
• Organizational leaders need tools for how to foster respectful expression rather than suppress religious identity.
• We conducted a first-of-its-kind set of research projects to form a data-driven approach to identifying and proposing solutions for the challenge of fostering faith at work.
• Rather than concentrating solely on the kind of employee we are, our own expressions of faith at work, and our personal responsibility and morality, we can examine the values of the workplace as a whole and work to advance justice, fairness, human flourishing, and the common good.
• When we put our research alongside the traditional understandings and approaches that have characterized the Christian faith-at-work movement, five key tensions emerged that show where the gaps are between assumptions and realities. We explore each of these tensions across a pair of chapters describing the pressures building and suggesting how they might be resolved.
• We make the case that the exclusive claims of Christianity actually demand an embrace of others in the workplace, regardless of their faith commitments, belief systems, or worldviews.
• We are arguing for the equivalent value and dignity of each person and for an approach to Christianity in the workplace that recognizes and centers on such.
• Using compelling real-world stories, research insights, and practical applications, we hope to provide new information, ideas, and guidance for Christian workers, Christian workplace leaders, and pastors and church leaders who want to see all people flourish at work.
• Our primary goal is to help those in the Christian faith community consider how to adapt their approach to a changing world in which older ways can get in the way and newer ways open the way.