TheHighCalling.org: Excellence

Interview with Bill Yeargin, CEO of Correct Craft (Interview)

Christine A. Scheller — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Bill Yeargin is the refreshingly down-to-earth President and CEO of Correct Craft, an 84 year old company that manufactures and sells the Nautique line of inboard wakeboard and water ski boats. He has been at the helm for just under three years, but is a well-known figure in the marine industry, having served on the executive team at Rybovich Yachts and on both national and international industry boards. Yeargin is the author of two books, Yeargin on Management and What Would Dad Say? and has published more than 200 management and leadership columns. He shares his practical advice in person at management conferences throughout the world. At home in Orlando, Florida, he boldly combines faith, service and work. Yeargin talked to TheHighCalling,org about how he does this and about leading his company with integrity in these challenging times.

My first question may be a silly one to ask a native Floridian, but here it goes: Do you and your family enjoy boating?

Totally! I wake skate and wake surf . . . and my family and friends all enjoy boating. My daughters are seventeen and eighteen. I truly believe one of the reasons we have a close family is because of boating. It is a great way to spend time with each other and one that everyone loves!

The Correct Craft mission statement is "Building boats to the glory of God." How do you glorify God in this type of business?

By loving God and others. Also, I believe we better demonstrate our faith when we show it through our actions, rather than our words. We are not afraid to be bold about our faith, but we are much more interested in living out our faith than sharing it through bravado.

What unique faith challenges do you face as a manufacturer of luxury goods?

We struggle with the same things as everyone else. I am not sure we have any unique challenges, even though they may feel unique when we are experiencing them.

We take our responsibility to develop and build good products very seriously. Our faith is one of the reasons that we do not cut corners. That shows up in the awards we have won; yet we don't do the right thing for the awards. We do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Tangible examples would be the modesty of our models and the lack of alcohol at our marketing events. I think it is fair to say that our models are the most modest dressers in the boating industry, for which we have been criticized some in the past. Our faith definitely impacts us in this area. We are not caught up in the "sex sells" mentality.

We also put a Bible verse in our brochure, but I would one hundred times prefer people know our faith is important through our actions and how we treat people rather than know it because we wear it on our sleeve.

You also told New Man eMagazine that it's more difficult to separate business and Christian principles than to integrate them, but that you, like all of us, fall short of your own ideals. How do you walk out failure, particularly in relationship with customers, peers, and coworkers who don't share your faith?

I stumble in my faith walk so often that I have a lot of experience walking out failure! First, I know that I will inevitably fall, so I don't try to hold myself up as an example. I try to communicate in our events that I am not any different than anyone else, and if you watch me long enough, I will let you down. (I don't mean to; it just happens because I am human.) Second, I try to be quick to confess when I mess up and never try to cover up anything. I think it is important that leaders don't set themselves up as super-human, because they will eventually just hurt someone by letting them down.

On a related note, you instituted voluntary Bible studies, community-service projects, and mission trips when you came to Correct Craft. Was there resistance to these changes?

None. We have done all of our faith-related activities on a voluntary basis, and we respect an employee's right not to participate. Shortly after arriving at Correct Craft, I implemented a weekly Bible study and soon thereafter the mission trips. We have taken employees on two trips to Mexico to build houses for the needy and one trip to Nicaragua to work at a shelter for homeless teenage mothers. The employees who went on these trips loved the opportunity to serve and were incredibly blessed.

Does Correct Craft pay for employees to do community service or mission trips?

Most times not. However, we have on a couple of occasions taken training days and used them for community service. In those cases, the employees were paid. Employees are not paid to go on mission trips, but we do subsidize the cost of the trip to make it easier for more employees to participate. I write a CEO blog, Nautique Insider, and have written a few times there about the trips and community service in which our company has been involved.

Do you have any suggestions for others who might want to offer voluntary faith-based activities in the workplace?

Don't hesitate; just do it. The key is to offer the opportunity, but also to make sure that there is no recrimination against those who choose not to participate. We go out of our way to make sure there are no negative consequences to not participating in our faith related activities. We love people to join us, but if they choose not to do it, that is their right.

It's been a challenging season for business. Instead of laying off employees, you initiated a program that combined scaled down boat building with training and community service. Can you tell me more about that?

At the start of 2009, we were beginning to experience a significant slowdown in the boating industry caused by the global macro-economic downturn and exacerbated by the severe credit crunch, both in our retail and wholesale operations. We knew we may have to make employment cuts, but we also wanted to obtain a clearer picture as to how long these environmental issues would impact us before making those decisions. For the first three months of this year, instead of sending our employees home when we did not have production work for them, we implemented a significant employee development program. This program provided training to our employees in many different areas such as teamwork, commu

Work Is Noble (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Growing up, I saw particular value in physical labor. One time when I was boy, I told my father that I’d never work in an office. I said, “I want to do real work.”

It’s funny how things work out. The only skills that I had in the area of manual labor were digging ditches and carrying heavy supplies. My brother was mechanical. He and my dad would work on cars. I stood there bored to tears waiting to fetch the next tool they needed.

I discovered through painful trials that working in the trades was not my forte. That didn’t stop me from trying to find meaningful work in factories. There was plenty of good work, but it just didn’t fit my core identity. So I struggled to find my calling and finally went back to college. What a painful decision that was. For me, the only thing worse than working in a factory was sitting in a classroom. But back to school I went.

I have a strong belief that work is noble. Books like Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford, The Mind at Work by Mike Rose, or Working by Studs Terkel reinforce this view. Work derives nobility from its concrete nature. Work is real, not abstract or conceptual. Work is true because I can feel its reality. Work produces something tangible. The material nature of things is good. Even God became corporeal.

Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God. He is corporeally human and fully God. Also he is logos, the fullness of reason.

"In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it" (John 1:1-5).

Acedia, Rehearsals, and Me (Personal Reflection)

Dena Dyer — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

When we open a new show at the Rockbox Theater, the professional theater where I work, I thoroughly enjoy the audiences' reactions to the hours and hours of practice put in by our cast and crew.

What I do NOT enjoy is the rehearsal process itself. I've been involved in singing and acting for most of my life, and I still abhor rehearsals.

It's just so much work.

I admit it—I'm lazy. While I love the spotlight and the actual performance aspect of live theater, the long hours spent away from my kids, hobbies, friends, and home frustrate me. I have to keep reminding myself that without the "boring-ness" of repeated rehearsals, our crew of singers and musicians wouldn't be successful. Self, I say, God wants you to be a good steward of your talents. That means putting in gobs of time . . . mostly in obscurity. And I continually tell myself that excellence of any sort takes hard work and discipline.

The irony is, I abhor acedia when I see it in other people. Kathleen Norris has talked about this idea of spiritual apathy in her recent memoir, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life.

A few years ago, an aspiring actress who worked at a burger joint asked my hubby how to break into the arts. He suggested she audition for her local theater and take acting lessons. But she waved off his advice, saying, "I'm good enough already. I just need someone to notice me."

I was appalled at her attitude. And I have a feeling she's still selling burgers.

But I see the same tendency in my kids—especially regarding chores and schoolwork—and I know they're probably getting it from dear old Mom. I hate this bent towards laziness in myself, and I truly am praying about it.

After all, acedia is most definitely a spiritual problem. Proverbs is full of scriptures touting the blessings that follow discipline, and the hardship that results when it's absent. Hebrews 12:11 says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

In our media-drenched society, a governor-turned-presidential candidate or aspiring singer can go from obscurity to fame in seconds. Hard work and discipline are no longer the only ways to achieve lasting success (Paris Hilton, anyone?). But in the spiritual realm and the other areas that really matter—parenting, marriage, friendship—the things that last are those that take the most time and effort.

I long for the harvest of righteousness and peace mentioned in Hebrews. But that harvest won't come if we're lazy, sitting around and hoping for it. Each day, we have to rehearse the truths God has given us. We must sit with the Word and meditate on (and with) our Savior. As we continually surrender to God's work in and through us, he will produce holiness.

This high calling takes hard work.

It takes my time.

It takes my discipline.

Our Goal is Love (Audio)

Howard E. Butt, Jr. — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Some years ago, Henry Nouwen died of a heart attack. He was a Catholic priest and psychologist best known for his book The Wounded Healer.

Those words, "wounded healer," speak volumes. In our brokenness, we live under God's blood and blessing. Yet, Henry would say sadly, "Many people . . . think they are unloved and unsafe. When suffering comes, they believe it affirms their worthlessness."

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. Henry believed our great spiritual quest is to learn to live our brokenness under the blessing and not the curse. Where we stumble and fail, God's grace and mercy thrive. Our goal is not perfection, but love . . . in the high calling of our daily work.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col. 3:13-14)

Finding God in What You Do - an interview with Ken Eldred (Interview)

Drew Dyck — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Ken Eldred is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and ministry pioneer. For over 20 years, Eldred served as CEO of Inmac, a public company he founded. He assisted in founding Ariba Technologies and has participated in business ventures in the U.S., Europe, China, and India. Eldred's passion is to bring Christ into the workplace. Toward this end, he has developed a model called "kingdom entrepreneurship" that encourages Christian businesspeople to spread the gospel by starting for-profit businesses in the U.S. and abroad. Eldred is co-editor of On Kingdom Business (Crossway), winner of a 2004 Christianity Today Book Award. His most recent book is God Is at Work (Regal).

When you became a Christian, you thought that in order to do real ministry you would have to become a pastor. Is this idea—that real ministry happens only in conventional ministry—still pervasive in the church?

Yes, I think it is. It screams at you more by its silence. It's not that people talk negatively about business; they just don't talk about it at all. So it's assumed that it's not something that's important to God.

It's also created a gender divide in the church. Several studies have shown there are a disproportionately small number of men in church. I think part of the reason is that pastors talk a lot about relationships. Women tend to be better at relationships than men. Men need help in this area. But when that's all that the pastor talks about, the women sort of say, "See what I told you?" So the guy's ribs get a little sore. Finally he says, "The pastor has nothing to say about my biggest concern, which is providing for my family's needs. He just picks on the weakest area of my life." He starts thinking "What am I doing here?" Then he walks away. Then the kids start to walk away and only the wife stays. It's going to get worse because more and more women are joining the workforce and they're going to wonder, "Does God have anything for me in my business life, because that's where I spend eight hours of my day?"

How can church leaders connect more effectively with business people?

Church leaders need to go to their business community. And when I use the word business, I mean people that are in the workforce, because ultimately everything is a business. The pastor needs to go to them and find out about their problems, learn about what they fear, what gets under their skin, and about what they're dealing with in the office. Thirty years ago, when I started my company, I invited my pastor to come over. We were operating with about 200 employees at that point. We were growing. And I said to him, "I don't know how to bring Christ into this business. How do I do that?" He looked at me and said, "I don't know either." That was the last conversation we had.

We're pretty good at being "the church gathered." We've learned how to worship. We're pretty good at teaching, at least inside the church. But we really haven't followed the model that Christ gave us of the church scattered—being out in the community, spending time in the public arena. Who is the moral authority of this nation? It's the pastors. They have to stand up and be part of this broader community. Pastors are our shepherds. Jesus went out and he took the twelve with him and he showed them how to live. He never was a businessman. He wasn't a fisherman like Peter, but he showed Peter how to operate in the world.

You base your ministry on a "kingdom business model." What does that mean?

It's been defined various ways, but when you get down to it, it's an attitude. It's a sense of priority. Is Jesus number one? Is he the center of all things? Or is something else the center? A business person can be a loving Christian. But if that person is focused on the bottom line as the primary driver, that isn't Jesus, and the bottom line becomes the god for that hour. We have to always ask, "Who is Christ in the middle of what we do?" And it forces us to ask what business is really about and what we expect to accomplish.

In your book, you add a new term to the business lexicon: "the triple bottom line." Can you explain that?

A growing trend in secular philanthropy and economic development is commitment to a "double bottom line." This means that not only must a business provide strong financial returns, but it must also provide significant social or environmental returns. Kingdom business rests on a similar recognition that our objectives should go beyond financial returns. For the Christian, however, effective transformation involves addressing economic, social, and spiritual conditions. So we have a three-fold objective for kingdom business, a "triple bottom line" that may be outlined as follows:

profitability and sustainability
local job and wealth creation
advancing the local church and building spiritual capital

Each of these objectives is important, and they should be pursued simultaneously. None should be sacrificed.

If we operate a business within a kingdom model, we're not only interested in what comes in

Attention (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Focus is tough for me right now. One of my sisters just had surgery for cancer, and trying to stay on task is sometimes difficult. Dealing with business items helps me to dial in my focus. When I try to write, though, things tend to distract me easily. So I labor, trying to create something meaningful and helpful in the high calling of our daily work. As you read the following, keep in mind that I wrote this over a couple of days and took almost any opportunity to turn away and attend to something else.

The concept of attention has captured my interest lately. Attention is the scarce commodity in the age of information. We’re bombarded by information. Where do we focus our attention?

Take a typical day. We begin the day wanting to accomplish certain things. They may concern our work, our family, civic duties, or rest. Whatever our agenda, we soon discover challenges to what we hoped to accomplish. We become distracted by the unanticipated events that pop up. Urgent needs keep us from staying on track. Conversations, meetings, phone calls, news reports all have a way of stealing our attention.

Listen up. I need your attention.

On the flip side, just gaining attention is a challenge. At some point, we all need to gain someone else’s attention. Advertisers are consumed with gaining attention, and marketing efforts revolve around managing customer and potential customer attention. On a more personal level, we try to gain the boss’s attention, an employee’s attention, or a spouse’s attention.

In dealing with gaining or maintaining attention, we make choices. We filter the incredible amounts of information that pass before us. Mentally, we sift through the visual and auditory messages that bombard our senses. We search for information that is important to us. Often we band in groups of like-minded people. Using social networking tools, talking over the phone, or meeting face to face, we align ourselves with people whose information we value. They help shape us because they have our attention. And likewise, we help shape them as we have their attention.

Two books have fueled my passion for pursuing attention as a commodity to be managed. First, The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information by Richard A. Lanham lays out a philosophy for the attention economy. Second, The Attentive Life by Leighton Ford, calls us to deep reflection and prayer. The Lanham book inspired me to inquire about attention and give it considerable contemplation. Leighton Ford’s book discusses the rhythm of life and the prime object of and purpose for our attention.

Even as I’ve tried to maintain my focus on writing this post, I’ve allowed my attention to wander. It’s helpful to have this struggle with attention because it forces me to see more deeply the challenges of our attention economy. And it helps me to lean into the love of Jesus to help me do what’s necessary.

Artists and Pastors (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

An Artists Retreat finishes up today at Laity Lodge. Actually, it's a retreat for those who pastor artists about how to do that more effectively. The visual artist Makoto Fujimura and arts pastor David Taylor made an outstanding team.

I was only able to be out at the retreat for a short period of time. But what struck me beyond the quality of the speakers was the quality of the guests. What I mean is that more than 85% of the guests were at Laity Lodge for the first time. When I arrived at the retreat, they'd been there about thirty hours. What I saw was a very comfortable group of people who were very warm in greeting and very comfortable in the setting. Moments after I arrived late for breakfast, L. L. Barkat came over to say, "Hi." This was our first face-to-face meeting, and it led to some delightful conversation.

Watching people talk to one another as they flowed in and out of groups at meals between sessions and during free-time was exciting to see. Many of these were engaging conversations filled with insight, humor, and grace.

One example is a converstion I had with Mark Philpot. At one point, I brought up arrogance as something that I've been reflecting on lately. Two things that can really irritate me are arrogance and pretense. But I was wondering if there is any advantage to arrogance. This was met with curiosity. I tried to explain that I was thinking that perhaps a truly knowledgeable person who came across as arrogant might actually have a right to be arrogant. Mark responded that arrogance denies grace. An arrogant person doesn't recognize that it is God's grace that makes their knowledge possible. Arrogance points to the person. Humility points to God. God's grace is recognized through humility.

Faith Without Work (Personal Reflection)

Christine A. Scheller — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Last fall, my husband and I did something few 40-something Americans envision. We moved in with my parents. After a family tragedy and a looming recession that didn't bode well for either my own or my husband's industry, we decided to take a radical step by leaving Southern California where we had lived for six years—it was time to move back East. Not only did we need the personal support this move represented, we also needed to tap into our primary social and professional networks to find work.

Critical to our decision was the fact that my parents have a large home. There's room to spread out. We've also missed each other and wanted to be together in our time of grief. Finally, we've all had previous experience with communal living and know how to navigate the landmines. Everyone's faith and character is being stretched, and we're each being blessed in unexpected ways.

As to vocation, my approach has generally been to knock on doors until the right one opens. Lately I've done a whole lot of knocking, but no one appears to be home. My patience has been tested, and along with it my faith and self-confidence.

The first professional step I took after we were settled was to make an appointment with a career counselor. I had read an article that suggested if job seekers aren't getting interviews, their resume needs modification; but if they are getting interviews and no offers, their interview skills need improvement. I surmised that my resume was not working for me and asked the counselor to evaluate it.

He identified an issue I had long suspected as a barrier. My work history has been almost entirely within the religious sector. Together, we worked to downplay a potential negative. We also highlighted non-religious work experiences and contacts. Ultimately though, I must trust God with my vocation: past, present, and future. In college, I had changed my major for expediency and then had succeeded beyond expectation. Later, I sailed through many open doors in my industry. That was then—things change.

The counselor commended steps I was already taking: depending on family at a challenging time, applying for positions via job boards, tapping into both personal and professional networks, cleaning up my online reputation (e.g. changing the setting on my blog so that only the front page comes up in Internet searches and asking other blog hosts to remove attributed comments from theirs). He also suggested that I make connections through LinkedIn.com (a networking site for professionals) and attend job fairs.

When I finally landed my first interview, I was nervous. The fact that I had to get out there and sell myself within months of a devastating loss was more than I thought I could handle. I also needed to be careful not to communicate desperation to a potential employer. Thus, I considered the interview primarily as a learning experience. Yes, I wanted the job, but trusting God to care for me as he had always done reduced my anxiety.

Matthew 6:25-26 tells us not to worry about our lives: what we will eat, drink, or wear. Jesus admonishes, "Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" God knows what my family and I need, and when.

I shed some healthy tears with my family before I left for the interview and was strengthened with the knowledge that they were praying for me. The issues I had been nervous about turned out not to be as awful as I'd imagined. The two-hour process was much less taxing than I'd feared, and I was able to project more confidence than I actually possessed. As anticipated, I didn't do particularly well on a specific skill test, but excelled on another.

I didn't get the position. The closed door told me that I should stop applying for jobs that depend largely on my weakest skill set and focus instead on those that tap into my strengths.

Financial need is forcing many of us to adapt creatively to a volatile job market and tightening economy. The process can be both uncomfortable and frightening. It can also be an opportunity for growth, if we remember who cares for the birds and opens barn doors.

God does all things well in His time.

John Wooden's Hands (Personal Reflection)

Leigh McLeroy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

A few years ago, I attended a sports breakfast that honored a then-95-year-old basketball legend named John Wooden. Coach Wooden, who recently turned 98, lives in California. At his age, he doesn't travel much, so he wasn't at the event physically. But we felt his presence.

Huge photos of the man at various stages of his career hung behind the dignitaries seated at the head table. The first showed a handsome, dark-haired young man in a Purdue basketball uniform, crouching as if he were about to pass the ball he held cocked and shoulder high. He gripped it tightly with both hands, his strong fingers splayed across the ball's rippled surface.

In the next photo, Wooden was a still-young coach with a whistle around his neck and the sleeves of his zippered athletic jacket pushed up on his forearms. One hand rested on his hip, and the other loosely cradled the ball that rested in the crook of his arm.

The final photo showed the Wooden most of the basketball world remembers: a wiry man dressed in a dark suit and tie, sporting horn-rimmed glasses and crouching on the sidelines in front of his players. One hand rested on his knee, and the other gestured emphatically with a rolled-up sheaf of papers. Maybe Bill Walton was listening. Or a guy named Lew Alcindor.

In every photo, Wooden's hands told a story. They were strong. Purposeful. Articulate. They belonged to a man whose standard was excellence. Nothing less.

Ten times John Wooden led his teams to the NCAA championship. Once he won that title as a player himself. He won over 80% of the games he coached . . . an astounding record in any era. His former players recalled the pithy sayings he repeated often to them. Things like "Little things make big things happen," and "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" And as good as he was at his job, ESPN reporter Rick Reilly said Wooden never made more than $35,000 a year—including 1975, the year he won his 10th and final NCAA championship. What's more—he never asked for a raise.

Thanks to satellite technology, Wooden was with us live that morning. When the large screen in the banquet hall lit up with his image, the crowded room quieted to a hush. I noticed his hands resting in his lap as he listened to the praises of the presenter, his thin fingers fluttering occasionally, and one hand alternately squeezing and holding the other. He was a man accustomed to motion and intensity—and even at 95 those hands gave him away. He seemed most comfortable when he lifted the trophy he was awarded that day. He knew how to handle its heft, and with both hands, he held it up. (He'd had plenty of practice.)

When the master of ceremonies asked the coach if he had any words for his audience, he spoke a few words he must have recited thousands of times, to his players and to himself, ending with the line: "Make each day a masterpiece." And his working man's hands testified that he had spent a lifetime taking his own advice.

Don't just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ's servants doing what God wants you to do. And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you're really serving God. (Eph. 6:6-7, The Message)

What a Way to Make a Living (Wisdom from Howard E. Butt, Jr.)

Howard Butt, Jr. — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I read this interesting article by Lucy Kellaway in The Financial Times and sent it around to my staff. It's worth reading:

One subject that songwriters labour to avoid
Last week the Guardian newspaper published a list of the 1,000 best pop songs ever written. There were songs about love, sex, heartbreak, protest, life and death. Yet on the subject of work there was almost nothing: Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” got a mention, but that was about it.
Read the rest of the article here.

Interview with Makoto Fujimura - Part 2 (Interview)

Becky Garrison — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

In his new book, Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture, artist Makoto Fujimura pens a series of essays exploring life, art, and faith. Makoto spoke with us recently about what it means to be an artist and how we can all be creative in our daily work. He will be a leading a retreat for Pastors and Lay Ministers to Artists at Laity Lodge from April 20-23, 2009.

Following is a continuation of our conversation with artist Makoto Fujimura.

How did your art become a ministry after 9/11?

It was not intentional. I was merely trying to address the concerns of everything around me. A temporary gallery was started—International Arts Movement (IAM)—that was an effort to create an oasis of collaboration in the downtown community. It started simply by conversing with those who were there at the time, many of whom were artists. Because we are artists, part of what we wanted to do was wrestle together. Their art was affected by 9/11, and mine as well. And, it was important to journey together for the time being. It turned into a series of exhibits and performances and small conversations there. It was temporary, but, afterwards, it left a legacy in how these artists began to work with change and how they are influenced by that time.

I wasn't necessarily doing this as a “ministry.” But we did minister to people. Every person struggling through those tough days recognized that something important was going on. This event had awakened in us something that art wasn't able to address at the time.

What would you say to people who feel they don't have the artistic talent that you were given, but yet they still have this need to create?

All of us are created to be creative in some way. We may not call ourselves artists or we may not be a professional artist; but creativity is an essence of being human. When you think about it, things that last in our memories are times when we were part of creating something. And, whether it be procreating, in terms of our families, or generating a business or creating an opportunity of mercy, or creating opportunities for people to hear the gospel—all of these are creative acts. And God calls us to that.

That is especially true of nonbelievers, because Christians know by common grace that God poured his gifts into all of the earth. There's a difference between common grace and special grace of salvation knowledge; but common grace is just given generally to all of nature and all of humanity. So, there's an overriding principle of generative creativity that we all long to be part of.

I think artists are catalysts. If you look at a Van Gogh painting, you see a vision that is sharp and refined and out-of-this-world, in a sense. You'll never see a cypress tree or a starry sky in the same way again. So, it's that kind of vision sharing. It's a gift that's being shared with all of humanity. And you can use that as a catalyst to be creative yourself.

What do you say to artists who feel that the church doesn't value their contributions to what they can bring to the body of Christ?

That's reality. But the question is, do they want to be part of the solution, or do they want to be part of the problem? Many times, artists are really unable to rise above the problem; and they become part of the problem. That's one of the things that International Arts Movement is trying to address. Artists can be the most generous, life-giving group of people because we're asked to be resourceful all the time. We've been trained to deal with having nothing and creating out of nothing—not quite as excellently as God did by far.

We can really provide the world with a sense of purpose and significance, and we can create hope even in desperate situations. Artists have this instinctive capacity to run right into the storm, rather than run away from the storm. I always say that you can choose to be part of the storm, or you can move into the eye of the storm. That is the greatest place to create from and has the most energy, as it were in Jeremiah 23:19. And so, there are all these opportunities, I think, that artists can miss if they don't see the whole picture. I encourage them to be part of the solution.

What about those who don't work as an artist? How can they view their work as a creative ministry?

Whatever your medium of adventures may be, you can certainly learn from the artists. You know, I speak to people all the time who say, “Well, I'm not an artist; I don't understand art at all.” I ask them, “What do you do on Sunday afternoon?” And they say, “Oh, we take a walk in the park, or we see a movie or go to a concert.” And, I say, “Well, so, you appreciate art in that way, or you cook something together or you have a family barbeque.” That's part of our creativity working through us.

What artists do is accentuate those experiences to give us a full reality that most of us are not aware of. They open up this vista of experience. By wrestling through these things and having a Christ-centered attitude toward things, we don't have to fear culture. We can live in it and critique it, because all culture is twisted. There are idols everywhere. Originally, idols were good things turned into idols. Our purpose as Christians is to turn them back into a source of goodness, beauty, and truth. That takes discipline and some knowledge. You can learn from artists how to hear music and how to look at the world in a way that opens up this whole new area of experience.

Why do you say prayer is the highest art form?

Prayer is agreeing with God and saying that there is a “world that ought to be” that God is really preparing. That takes imagination and a great deal of poetry and color and aroma of Christ. Those are all things that the arts can help us with.

What relationship do you see between imagination and curiosity and the fruits of the Spirit?

Oh, goo

Interview with Makoto Fujimura - Part 1 (Interview)

Becky Garrison — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

In Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture, artist Makoto Fujimura pens a series of essays exploring life, art, and faith. Makoto spoke with us recently about what it means to be an artist and how we can all be creative in our daily work. He will be a leading a retreat for Pastors and Lay Ministers to Artists at Laity Lodge from April 20-23, 2009.

How do you see your work as your calling?

I knew that my work as an artist was my calling before I was a Christian. You can't really commoditize art. The pure artists feel called to do what they do despite enormous difficulties such as not being able to market their works or having an audience necessarily at that moment. This made more sense after I became a Christian, and I knew who called me and to what purpose. One of the things that I discuss in the book is how the process of creativity and the journey of faith overlap. In fact, I was part of a study group called the Faith and Work Group at Yale that examined: “Why is it that Sunday faith is not translated into Monday through Saturday?”

What did you learn from that study group?

I wrote an essay in the book titled “Optimum Foraging Theory: Can You Have Your Birds and Eat Them Too?” It was based on the experience of our group touring the Tyson Factory and thinking through what it means to have a calling of some kind but also have a market reality.

As a Christian, how do you deal with the commercialized aspect of the art world?

Recently, I have been writing in Refractions and on my blogs about the necessity for the market system in the art world to change into more of a hybrid system. Instead of being based purely on the celebrity-driven, ego-infested market system, it would really take into account one's creativity and the biblical paradigm of Shalom prosperity. That's different from just having market prosperity. God plans for us to be thriving in our creativity. Therefore, there has to be an over-arching system that accounts for that. While there are a few pockets of Shalom prosperity, currently, there is no system like that in place. The church should be one of the first places where that could be possible.

What do you think keeps the church from not being one of those places?

I think it's bought into the commoditized system. It's driven by market desires and consumer mentality. We have big churches, which is not bad in itself, but with mall-like structures and 20th century evangelism, the church kind of turned itself into salesmanship of the gospel—where it can be bought or sold. And the person receiving the gospel is either buying it or not buying it. That's a problem in many ways, as we can imagine.

The ineffectiveness of our not being able to create that hybrid system leads to the gospel being boiled down to some level of commodity. As a church, we need to really reconsider this system by recreating our system and calling for systemic change.

How do you glorify God in your daily work?

I glorify God by fulfilling my calling and being faithful in small things. But it's also about being willing to stand for my faith in certain ways. I do that by being authentic and integrating my faith journey with my art. I work with whoever I work with—whether it be a gallery or the whole system that is driven by a celebrity market system with ideologies that are somewhat opposed to biblical values—but I love the art world instead of disengaging from it.

How do you achieve that balance?

Jeremiah 29 calls us to pray for the prosperity of the city in which God has called us into exile. We are in exile. That's just the reality. But that doesn't mean we can disengage and run away from it. Jeremiah tells us to plant gardens and settle down and get married, which means a long incarnational journey to live and work in the place of exile and to honor God there as Daniel did. We become a better Babylonian than the Babylonians.

What Scripture verses or Bible stories influence your art?

Well, the entire Bible is written by our Creator God for broken creative people of God to create and love. That's how I read the Bible; it's a creative book to be read as our creative journey. So, to me, every single verse in Scripture is filled with creative principles that we can learn from—not for the sake of creativity, but for the sake of sanctification and our journey toward the City of God.

What is the biggest spiritual challenge you face in your work?

I would say it is the market pressure, because I have to survive and feed my family as a full-time artist. So, you toil and labor under the curse. Unfortunately, it's very hard to make what I do sustainable because of market pressure and lack of support from the world and from the church. You have to be entrepreneurial. I'm fortunate that I have that capacity, but a lot of people don't. Oftentimes, that puts them at risk in the world. And yet, God has been kind to me and my family and has sustained us as I fulfill my calling. I consider that a daily miracle.

Speaking of family, how do you juggle your family, your ministry, and your art all at the same time?

I talk about that in the book. It's really an amazing miracle and journey that certainly is a juggling act. I do it because I believe it's important. My journey as an artist and what I create is directly linked to advancement of God's kingdom somehow. If I didn't have a conviction, it would be hard to make it work. But at the same time, there's wisdom there that involves making sure that I have a team around me that protects me from burning out, so my work can be sustainable.

What does your work teach you about your faith in the person of God?

I learn a lot from the process of painting—even the frustration of the business side of things or my own failings in what I desire to accomplish. I hope they are teachable moments for me. Creating art is essentially a discipline in which one learns to deal with these frustrations. They ar

Catching a Glimpse of the Pearl (Personal Reflection)

Larry Julian — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Turning to me, the CEO revealed his fear of sharing his values and beliefs with his employees. "Are you familiar with the Found Out Theory?" he asked. "It's the fear that one's true self—particularly one's faith—will be exposed." Our vulnerability rises from fear—fear of being labeled or being libeled, losing our reputation or losing our finances.

I understood that CEO's fear. I believed revealing my faith in Christ would hurt me professionally. And then Monty came along.

As the ultimate Bible teacher and mentor, Monty didn't just teach me, he revealed the living Christ. I remember the day I reached my breaking point; a culmination of years of rejection by publishers. We were having lunch in Monty's office when I broke down crying as I told him of my decision to abandon my four-year attempt to publish God Is My CEO. With tears in his eyes, Monty hugged me and then, with confidence in his voice, read from his worn Bible and encouraged me to fan into flame the gift of God that was in me. Monty poured God's truth into me until I felt I could make a difference simply by being who God made me to be.

Monty taught that relationships, not dollars, are life's true currency. Three hundred of Monty's students, mentees, and friends came to his memorial service. It was there I discovered that without fail, when Monty had made a difference in a life, that person went on to make a difference in another life.

Chris, a high school drop-out who Monty encouraged until he became a successful pastor, shared, "Monty acted like I was the most important person on earth. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself."

Ward, a self-proclaimed self-serving insurance salesman, became a defender of the poor in Africa. Ward shared, "When the whole world seemed to laugh at my dreams, Monty embraced them, fueled them with prayer, and then relentlessly held me accountable to the kingdom for their completion."

Charles, another of Monty's students, explained, "In life, there are role models and heroes. Role models are emulated for what they do well, while heroes are admired for who they are. Monty was more than a role model; he was a hero. Like everyone else, he had doubts, fears, and discouragements as he battled cancer, heart issues, and Parkinson's disease, but he never allowed them to be relevant in the purpose God had for his life. Monty always said, "What God permits, I thankfully accept." I experienced an unmistakable freedom and joy in the man; I caught a glimpse of the heart and spirit of Jesus—the pearl (Matt. 13:46). I don't seek to emulate what Monty accomplished, but what he found that gave him the freedom to become who he was. I want that pearl!

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give is to let others see the pearl inside you. When you allow God room to be significant in your life—through your love, attitudes, behaviors, and actions—you create a path for him to be significant in others' lives. That's why your life is so important. You don't need to change the world and do great things for God. Let God help you be a good husband, wife, parent, friend, leader, or coworker. The world is starved for the pearl that is within you!

Your life as an expression of your faith, even with your blemishes and faults, has an impact on the world around you. One of Monty's students had been out of work for a long time. Despite discouragement and bouts of depression, he went to one job interview after another. During this same time period, his teenage daughter was battling bulimia. When her dad later asked how she overcame bulimia, she reflected, "I watched you when you were totally discouraged. I knew that if you could do it, so could I."

Don't allow your blemishes to diminish God's blessings. Expose them as an expression of your faith. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." You may see a flawed person; God sees a masterpiece. Let who you are speak for what you believe. Through your transparency, God will transform lives.

Soaring Spirit (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Flying from Sam Fuller on Vimeo.

This video is so simple yet inspiring. It is poetic and beautiful without grand production and expensive equipment. Uplifting music accompanies a soaring spirit on a ride from an office on the thirty-first floor. What a metaphor for glorifying God in everyday life and work.

New Survey (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

We are constantly striving to improve your experience at TheHighCalling.org. We interpret data on a regular basis trying to anticipate your needs. However, sometimes we just have to have your input.

So we've added a badge in the right-hand corner of the homepage. It's near the search function.

Please take our quick four-question survey . It takes about thirty seconds and can really benefit the site.

Oscar Robertson (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I was a senior in high school the first time I saw him play. For me, he was the embodiment of everything my coaches had ever taught me about the fundamentals of basketball. Here was this large linebacker in shorts, a point guard with perfect posture, driving to the basket, shooting the perfect layup. There was no flamboyance in the Big"O." He was the purest player I've ever seen. The closest thing to him was the slighter, perfect jump shooter, Jerry West.

Fundamentally, no player was as perfect as Oscar Robertson, not Jerry West or the young Walt Frazier. Nobody. I saw him near the end of his career. He had been traded from the Cincinnati Royals to the Milwaukee Bucks. Oscar wasn't even the big draw any more. Everybody, including me, came to see the young star, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I came away from that game with a different view of the sport. I didn't know that anyone could play basketball like Oscar Robertson did.

In an era when no one talked about "triple doubles," Oscar Robertson averaged 12.5 rebounds, 11.4 assists, and 30.8 points per game in the 1961-62 season. Those stats rival anything ever produced in the NBA, including Michael Jordan.

The experience of watching that game is vivid in my memory. I've thought about it numerous times. And because I've thought about it so often, I've prayed about it too. As I've prayed, one thought keeps coming to my mind, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." As I follow this concept, I'm led to Deuteronomy 18:13, "Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God." This is the King James Version. It translates the Hebrew word, tamiym about the same as interpreters translate the Greek word telios, which is "perfect." Both words mean completeness in the sense of fulfilling intention.

I understand this as excellence—doing what you do so well that it is pleasing to God. Excellence isn't necessarily flashy or flamboyant. There is grace and beauty in the compete control of a performance. It's using God-given talent and applying it at the highest level possible.

Here's the message Oscar Robertson's game spoke to me: Be perfect. Robertson's perfection, his excellence, helped me to understand the importance of working with excellence. And that excellence symbolizes the high calling of our daily work.

Human Flourishing (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I heard a term I'd never heard before, "Human Flourishing." It was in the context of what we provide through our Laity Lodge programs and TheHighCalling.org. Through our Free Camps, Youth Camp, Family Camp, retreat center, radio encouragements, and on the web, we offer people the opportunity to flourish. Wow! That's a heavy load and challenging responsibility.

In the conversation, Mark D. Roberts pointed out that "human flourishing" was more the intention than "happiness" in the New Testament. God wants us to flourish, not merely to be happy. Flourishing means that we become more fully who we are created to be.

The understanding of the word eudaimonia as human flourishing goes back to Aristotle. This is the Greek word that is translated as happiness in the New Testament. The Aristotelian understanding of happiness is arguably a more complete understanding of the word happiness. It is more consistent with Jesus' teaching.

On this issue, IVP editor, Al Hsu, poses three questions: "So what does it mean for me to be a flourishing human? At work, in my studies, in my family, at church? And how best to contribute to the flourishing of others?"

These three questions are part of what we address at TheHighCalling.org. We feel this is our calling, and we accept the challenge.

Abject Failure Makes Success Sweeter (Personal Reflection)

James C. Schaap — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I had never done it before in a class—spun a film on DVD out of a computer, through a projector, and onto a screen; but I had the procedure down. I swear, I had it down, all my fancy bookmarks in place. I like technology, but I've suffered more than my share of mortifying miscues.

So I get things set up before the class starts. I plug in the cords and hit all the right buttons.

Nothing works. Nothing works.

I tell a student to run to the tech people down the hall and fetch someone, anyone, as I keep fiddling. We're five minutes into the class period and still nothing’s working, so I start lecturing, shooting from the hip. I hadn't planned on talking about Native American history, but I tell myself the topic is roughly connected.

A techie savior rushes in, but the blasted machine keeps refusing to show the video. For fifteen minutes, I keep looking back at her while yakking away about the Dawes Act, the whole blame lecture coming from the seat of my pants. The students are looking at me as if they want their money back. The clock is ticking.

Finally, she says she's got the video running in some other software, not in the program where I'd so deftly tucked all my bookmarks. Okay. Deal. Just press the fast forward button until we get relatively close to the scene I want to show. I do, it crawls along, and finally I hit "play." No sound. I’m not kidding—no sound.

Suddenly, my techie discovers an obscure wire pulled out of the back of the projector or boom box or whatever—hence, no sound. But now it's also 1:45, and the class is officially a train wreck.

I tell my students to leave. They do, mercifully.

Failure—a real blowout failure. I walk back to my office licking wounds and muttering words I can’t print.

After 35 years of teaching, such abject failure still makes me think I should have been a roofer. But then, as the poet Emily Dickinson says, “Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne’er succeed.” Technology laid a whipping on me in class that day. It accomplished this much at least: I tell myself I am not walking back into that room without having the whole gig down. Abject failure can be cod liver oil for the soul, hustling me along toward success—or at least away from even the faintest possibility of any sorry repetition.

I’m a believer, born and reared a Calvinist. I’d be the last to say that my salvation is dependent on my own sweat and tears. No way.

But down here wandering in the vale of tears, I’ve come to understand that when utter devastation is all that lies behind me in a classroom, the only way to go on is to pick up the pieces, jut the jaw, gird the loins.

Oh, and never, ever use that same blasted video projector.

That too.

Natives Have No Shoes (Audio)

Howard E. Butt, Jr. — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Years ago, a large shoe manufacturer sent two sales reps into the Australian outback. The company’s crazy sales manager thought he could drum up shoe business among the tribes living off the land.

Sometime later, telegrams arrived from both shoe reps. The sales manager tore them open. The first one said, “No business possible. Natives don’t wear shoes.” The second rep said, “Great business opportunity! Natives don’t wear shoes!”

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. 'Wanna bet that a visitor to the second salesman’s territory would see natives in shoes? Where one rep saw a dead end, another rep saw opportunity. Opportunities abound if we choose to see them . . . in the high calling of our daily work.

Therefore, as we have opportunity , let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal. 6:10)

Social Media 2 (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

We’re picking up the pace with our social media. TheHighCalling.org has developed a Facebook product page, a Twitter account, and a YouTube channel.

Our plan is to keep the message of TheHighCalling—glorifying God in everyday life and work—in the streams of social media. We want to be there when people are needing encouragement, looking for answers to difficult questions, or trying to reflect on their faith in a meaningful way.

Our goal is to help people live transformative lives. We want people to know the High Calling of Christ.

With that in mind, you may be interested in some of these links:

Visit The High Calling of Our Daily Work Facebook page. Click here and become a fan.
Visit the Laity Lodge YouTube Channel. http://www.youtube.com/laitylodge
Visit the Laity Lodge Youth Camp YouTube Channel. http://www.youtube.com/best2weeks
Visit The High Calling YouTube Channel. http://www.youtube.com/thehighcallingvideo
Follow The High Calling on Twitter.
Follow High Calling Blogs on Twitter.

Let It Flow Out: An Interview with N. T. Wright (Interview)

Mark D. Roberts — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Bishop N. T. Wright is arguably one of the most important theologians writing today. He’s published everything from weighty theological tomes like Christian Origins and the Question of God, to accessible commentaries like Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, to inspirational books like Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope. When N. T. Wright agreed to lead an intimate retreat at Laity Lodge, we took the opportunity to ask him about honoring God in everyday life and work.

What does it look like to be "Simply Christian" outside the professional church from 9 to 5?

It looks like a million different things. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, "Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in eyes and lovely in limbs, not His." In a sense, when you become a Christian, you become your genuine self. You’re called into that fresh selfhood. God made each of us to be really quite different and to reflect in a million little glittering diamonds that sense of the differentness of Jesus. Jesus looks like one way in this person and another way in that person. Ordinary people develop skills and talents which are peculiar to them. Then they bring those gifts to the church—gifts of art, gifts of leadership, gifts of craft, gifts of service of all sorts. You will see a rich variety develop.

Just as an interesting aside, our local culture in the north of England is a working-class culture. For generations and generations, everyone has lived in these little row houses like in the mining or steel communities. At the end of the village, there is one big house, which is where the owner lives. He tells everybody what to do, and they do it. He pays them, and they go and have a beer. That’s it. They don’t have any decisions to make except which pub to visit at the end of the day. That is still how a lot of people approach the church. We don’t expect to think. We don’t expect to make decisions. That’s what the Vicar is for. We expect the clergy to tell us what to do, and we don’t want to think for ourselves. I want to say, "No, you’ve all got to be individuals and do your own thing." Actually, I think that’s part of the Gospel.

How do Christians glorify God in their daily work or does our work have some other, more nuanced, purpose?

There are all sorts of different jobs. George Herbert’s famous hymn, "Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine." It’s a very important principle of Christian service. Now, it’s much easier, no doubt, to think of yourself as doing important Christian work if you’re preparing sermons or being chief in a music band in church or whatever. But actually, the guy who sweeps the step is doing just as much good as you are, maybe more. I am delighted when I go to a church and see people doing mundane things with a sense of pride, because they’re doing them for the love of God and the body of Christ. I love those people. Nobody knows who they are; nobody knows their names. As a bishop, I try to go around and thank them because I can see they’re doing a good job. Of course, we’d all like to be the architect who builds the cathedral or the composer who writes the symphony or whatever. But most of the time, we do what needs to be done. Christ shines out of the way we work, not so much what we do, but how we do it.

How does one’s work fit into the overlap of Heaven and earth?

If it is true that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then each Christian is a place where Heaven and earth overlap. C. S. Lewis said, "Next to the blessed sacrament, your Christian neighbor is the holiest object ever presented to your senses." In Christians, the true Christ should be truly present. From that point of view, what you do as a Christian should embody that overlap of Heaven and earth. But we often think of Heaven in such grandiose terms, often platonic terms, and we just see that Heaven and earth are meant to go together. They were put together in the first place in Genesis 1 in the garden.

The call to a new creation at the intersection of Heaven and earth seems to be a call for action.

Yes, it is. That’s the short answer. But let’s be absolutely clear what we’re talking about here. Salvation and justification are not the same thing.

What you do in the present matters. It’s hard for Protestants to hear that without thinking, "Oh, dear, this is good works again." That’s a scare tactic. Sometimes, it’s a political scare tactic—to stop Christians from actively working to change the way the world is, confronting justice, and building communities of peace and hope instead of ones of violence and hatred. The verse which says it all for me is the last verse in 1 Corinthians. Okay, you’ve got this great chapter on resurrection. What is Paul going to say after writing a whole chapter on resurrection? Is he going to say, "Since there is a resurrection, look up and wait for this glorious future?" No, h

Old Truths (Audio)

Howard E. Butt, Jr. — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

In the 1920s, pastor Bates Burt didn't understand his son Alfred's fascination with new, unsettling jazz.. But he supported it—even letting him practice drums in the rectory attic! Al became a professional jazz musician, and Bates was his son's most devoted fan. Al continued his father's annual tradition of composing carols as Christmas cards.

Nat King Cole, Simon and Garfunkel, and James Taylor recorded Al's carols. The songs continue to proclaim Christ's birth in ways his pastor father could never have imagined.

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. What if Alfred Burt's father had denounced his son's love of jazz as unspiritual or unworthy? We might not have his wistful, innovative music. Sometimes vocation and worship meet to break new ground . . . in the high calling of our daily work.

Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Prov. 22:6, AMP)

An Interview with Tony Jones: Part 2 (Interview)

Marcus Goodyear — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

According to his website, "Tony is the national coordinator of Emergent Village (www.emergentvillage.org), and a doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary." We spoke with him recently about some of the topics in his recent book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier—as well as his understanding of ministering to others through our daily work.

When most people think of church, they think of the buildings where we meet on Sunday morning. What do you mean when you say church?

I use that term "church" as broadly as I use the term "ministry." By church I don't mean bricks and mortar. I mean those of us who have submitted ourselves to some kind of communal form of Christianity. Christians need to get together deliberately and do stuff in tandem with one another. I don't think one is probably really a Christian if one is not somehow involved in communal life.

The whole Bible is written to people in community. The letters were written to communities and meant to be read publicly and talked about. And the Old Testament was meant for the entire nation of Israel. It was never addressed to a single person. So, I think we need to take that as the precedent.

How is technology changing the way we perceive church?

People have stolen this idea from mathematics that the church is a bound set. A bound set has a discreet boundary on it. So you might say you're either Presbyterian or not. I think of church as a relational set, more like the Internet. It's this relationship between multiple cells or multiple hubs. So you might say Roman Catholicism is a hub, Presbyterianism is a hub, and you might say Laity Lodge is a hub. All these different websites are hubs, and all these things together make for this massive web of relationship that is Christianity.

Technology is the primary force that drives us. It is driving the entire communications industry and transportation industry and all other industries that are dependent on communication and transportation. Everything we do about our lives, how we talk to our loved ones, how we vacation, how we work, where we work, all that is driven by information technology, and the Church is too.

I've talked to some pretty naive people who say, "Well, the Church is different. It isn't like a business. The Church isn't affected by culture." Well, come on. Of course it is. So, the future of the Church is going to be driven by the technological innovations that are happening so rapidly right now.

Did I just hear you reject the sacred/secular divide?

I totally reject it! 100%. I think it is Platonic philosophy for someone to say there is a sacred/secular divide, that there are some things in creation that are holy and some things are profane. I think that is the philosophy of Plato; it is not biblical.

The Platonic image of God is an immaterial transcended mind that hovers somewhere off in the cosmos, untouched by human fingerprints. The biblical image of God has dirt under his fingernails. He walks with Adam in the cool of the day. He leads Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He wrestles with Jacob and whispers in prophets' ears. He literally gets dirt under his fingernails in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the uniqueness of Christianity, that God came in the form of a human being.

That is unheard of in other religions. In fact, it's blasphemous in other religions.

So do you believe God is involved in every aspect of life and work?

Absolutely. People talk about bridging the Sunday/Monday divide. But that kind of language exacerbates the problem. I've heard pastors talk about life "Between Sundays." As if we don't know how to get from one Sunday to the next or something. Talk like that from Christian leaders is deeply problematic. I'm not saying that the people who are listening to this don't struggle in their daily lives with living out God's calling to ministry in every aspect of life, right? But, it's no different if you work in a church. Working for IBM, Best Buy, or Target is not any more or less profane than working on a church staff. Every one of these things to which we are called as a vocation has the opportunity to be a place where we are open to the movement of God's Spirit—or where we think it's all about us and our achievement.

We're just coming out of an election season, so let's talk about politics. What does it look like when a politician's work is ministry?

It's like the cop we talked about before. How could politics not be ministry? Politicians and elected officials have a great responsibility to care for people, to talk in ways that help people feel like their concerns are being heard.

I do worry when politicians say, "We need to water down the distinctives of Christianity or Islam or Judaism in a pluralistic environment." I don't know that you can do that. Talking about Jesus may be a little offensive to Jews and Muslims, but you can't just talk about love or something like that. Christianity hinges on Jesus Christ. We're just really in a time of deep cultural conversation about how we pull this off in a pluralistic environment. And we don't know exactly how it's going to happen.

Forgetting to Remember God (Personal Reflection)

Bradley Moore — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

I completely forgot about God for two entire weeks. I know, that sounds terribly unspiritual of me. Couldn't I have at least garnered a passing nod to the one who created me, the savior of my soul?

I wasn't purposefully ignoring God. But gradually, a massive rip tide of distractions going on in my life swept me away. For two entire weeks, there was no morning Scripture reading before work, no Sunday morning worship services, no spiritual meditation, no acknowledgement of God's presence in my life, not even a brief prayer whispered in the frenzy of a busy day.

I was really, really busy.

"Wow," I can hear you say. "That sounds so lame."

But it's true. Between work pressures, family obligations, weekend travel plans, and driving my two daughters around, I barely had time for sleep, let alone deep spiritual communion with the Almighty. It all came to a crunch during this particular two-week period--the tyranny of the crammed family schedule. I know. That's so new-millennial-suburban-affluent passé, right?

And now the little Evangelical Preacher Voice in my head (who visits with me frequently) has become very agitated. He is convicting me quite effectively with his high and mighty rants about spiritual laziness, shouting, "There are no excuses for forgetting about God!" He is also threatening me with that very disturbing scripture from Revelation about the lukewarm Christians getting spit out of God's mouth. The Preacher Voice lectures me about Martin Luther. When faced with an extremely pressing day, rather than skipping his morning prayer time, Martin Luther said "I can't afford NOT to pray!" That man knew his priorities. He was spiritually disciplined, certainly. On his busiest days, Martin Luther woke up an extra hour early in order to have his time with Our Lord, giving him the spiritual strength that he would need to manage the pressures of his life.

Not me. Let's just call a spade a spade. I am spiritually undisciplined. Especially if sleep deprivation is at stake. Nine times out of ten, I'll opt for that extra 20 minutes of sleep, because, you see, unlike Martin Luther, I will feel cranky and achy and unable to function if I don't get a decent night of sleep. This then leads to irritation and cursing and all sorts of un-Christian-like behavior later in the day with my associates. I'm sure you can see my logic and reasoning. I can't afford NOT to sleep!

So God slips through the cracks. He becomes the lowest priority, the bottom rung of the ladder. That's the truth. And I know that it's not right.

Well, OK. There is this one other thing. I was in the midst of closing a major deal that was two years in the making, but it was not going so well. In fact, I was wondering if the whole thing was going to fall apart.

I fretted anxiously, trying to push things along, but knowing full well that I had no control of the outcome. Being the exemplary leader that I am, I faked out everyone around me. I pretended with brash confidence that I was in complete control. But inside, I was getting eaten up with worry and doubt.

So there you have it. The crammed family schedule was not the culprit here. I forgot about God—no, I avoided God—because I was panicky and needed to be in control of the mess I was in. Isn't that ridiculous? But isn't that so human, too? My worry and doubt were so inferior to our omniscient loving God to trust. Especially when you take into account that this God who loves me has made a way in every situation over the past 40-plus years of my life. But I just didn't have the spiritual presence of mind to stop, acknowledge God's vast superiority to me and my little situation, and give it over to him.

I didn't trust God.

Finally, the crazy family travel schedule settled down, and the next Sunday I found myself back in church again. The peace and comfort of the worship service—the liturgy, the readings, the music—they all served to calm and refocus my spirit. When it was time for all of us to read the Prayer of Confession, I joined in with the voices of the congregation, saying:

"Seeds of doubt grow quickly in our hearts. Fear chokes off confidence and prevents us from receiving your Spirit. We multiply our sorrows by worshipping what we see and hear more than you, our delight and salvation. O God, in your great mercy, grant us the peace that passes understanding. Forgive us, and draw us close to you, that we may breathe deeply of your presence and find in you the fullness of joy."

At that moment, as I read the prayer, I remembered God again. It was like God waved the smelling salts before my spiritual nose, and it all came back to me. What have I been doing? God, how could I have just forgotten about you? I realized how self-centered I had been the past two weeks. God is so much bigger than my deal, so much more important than whatever the outcome is going to be. And he loves me.

I gave in again to God, utterly and completely, and trusted him with my work. As it turned out, the deal was saved.

Sometimes God is subtle, and a real gentleman. He doesn't go around saying "You idiot! I told you so! What were you thinking!" He allows us intelligent creatures to figure it out on our own, even though he must get frustrated watching us continuously banging our heads against the walls of ego and control that we put in front of him day after day. But, hopefully, eventually, we learn to trust him, and take another step closer to the Kingdom of Heaven.

All This Content (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

TheHighCalling.org has a huge amount of content. Our struggle is making that content available to people in a way that's not overwhelming, especially for the first-time visitor. We sometimes get overwhelmed by the content too.

At the top of the page, we list eight categories to help people navigate the site: attitude, work and family, gifts and talents, leadership, service, integrity, professional relationships, and excellence. That's cut down from the thirty-plus themes of our previous site. We hoped that tagging the articles and audio might help identify more pieces by theme. This has helped some.

Currently, we're working on a strategy for users to engage this content on a deeper level. The goal in all our programs is personal renewal and transformation. We want to find effective means in helping people achieve that end through using TheHighCalling.org.

If you have any thoughts about what you'd like us to do, we'd be interested in hearing from you. Any and all feedback is useful. Feel free to comment on this post or just use the Contact Us page to give us your thoughts. Thanks for your faithfulness.

Christians Can Be Clueless (Audio)

Howard E. Butt, Jr. — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Ever study birds on a power line? Dozens . . . hundreds . . . side-by-side, chirping away—oblivious to the power surge right under their feet.

We Christians can be equally clueless. The Holy Spirit is our divine strength, but we may be as unaware of His presence as those birds on a wire. Contrast that picture with Paul's comment to the Philippians about his power source. Paul said, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. We all face distractions. In our busyness, we're like birds on a wire, unaware of the power within and around us. This divine power enables us to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways . . . in the high calling of our daily work.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13, ESV)

If you only learn one thing here . . . (Wisdom from Howard E. Butt, Jr.)

Howard Butt, Jr. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

In the last year, our focus as an organization has become even more unified and purposeful.

If you visit this site (or any of our programs) and come away with only one thing, I hope it’s this: What you do, each and every day, matters to God—whether it’s in a board room, behind a desk, in front of a computer, around the dinner table with your family, out in the community, or at church, God cares about it.

You see, there are two foundational truths about the human spirit that drive our working philosophy. First, just like the Trinity, we are relational beings. But since humanity’s fall, we’ve been in the business of messing up our relationships. The good news is that God can heal them even as he heals us by his grace. Those relationships affect who we are and how we navigate the world.

The second foundational truth is this: We’re created to glorify the Creator. And our understanding of the Creator will certainly dictate the way we lead and direct our lives—at home, at work, in church, and in the community at large.

I’ve devoted my entire life to encouraging Christian lay people to see themselves as part of the “priesthood of all believers.” God has given all of his people the “high calling” of serving him in every aspect of life. For years, we’ve broadcast this good news to hundreds of thousands of individuals in our Canyon ministries, through radio messages, over the Internet, and through gatherings of business men and women.

Yet, what we’ve done is not enough. God is asking us to stretch ourselves. We are taking bold steps over the next five years to strengthen what we’ve always done. We’re also expanding into new territories. And with help from friends and leaders, we’ve created a strong plan that outlines how we will accomplish these mighty tasks.

Ultimately, together, we will work to encourage civic and business leaders, employers and employees, parents and children, clergy and laity to embrace their high calling as a visible, incarnational witness to Christ. As servant leaders, using the Trinity as our guide, we’ll help contribute powerfully to the realization of a Kingdom that affects far more than just Sunday—where God is a vibrant, powerful, gracious beginning-middle-and-end of everything we do each and every day. The Message translation of Paul’s letter to Philippi says: “Celebrate God all day every day!” (Phil. 4:4 ).

The Power of Video (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

While sitting in the back of the room at a tech conference, I was shocked by what I saw. Everybody at the conference had their laptops open, and only about half the group were listening to the speaker. The other half were reading emails, surfing the web, or working on spreadsheets. This wasn't the shocking part. Sadly, that type of behavior is considered acceptable by many people today. While some consider it rude, others just shrug it off and consider it part of doing business in an increasingly multitasked world.

The only thing that stopped the multitasking was a video clip. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up at the screen. They stayed engaged through the end of the three-minute video. Now that was shocking!

Pardon my sarcasm, but the video clip was the only thing during the conference that got everyone's attention. I concluded that video had power. The questions are: why do videos have power; how do they have power; how best is that power harnessed, and does all video have power?

There is a certain novelty to short video clips that illustrate a point. Video has the advantage of changing scenes rapidly or introducing action that engages the viewer. Discerning video's best uses remains a challenge. Keeping an audience engaged is always the challenge. Powerpoint presentations were once very engaging. Now they're hum-drum.

Technology changes at an alarming rate. Just a dozen years ago, cell phones were still a novel extra. Now they're viewed as a necessity, and they're not just used as phones anymore. They are handheld wireless devices that keep us connected.

With all this rapid change, we're tempted to ask, "Does anything of value last?" When that question comes up in any form, it is time. Step back from the crazyness that life presents. Move away from busy. Focus on the one who can bring us peace. Look to Jesus. Pray. Focus solely on his love for you and how it has endured. Return that love.

An Interview with Tony Jones: Part 1 (Interview)

Marcus Goodyear — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Tony Jones has been the national coordinator of Emergent Village (www.emergentvillage.org). He is currently theologian-in-residence at Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis and a doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. We spoke with him recently about some of the topics in his latest book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier—as well as his understanding of ministering to others through our daily work.

Can you tell me a little bit about your time as a police chaplain? Do you have any good stories from that?

I have this one story that got cut from the book that is incredible. I got this call late at night, like on December 22 or 23, for a DOA. The guy who died was about 480 pounds, and he hadn't gotten out of bed for 3 or 4 years. His room was floor to ceiling, wall to wall, homemade shelves full of food. Cans of beef stew and bags of Fritos, and it had a stench like nothing I'd ever smelled before. And, this was not the stench of death, but it was a stench that long preceded his expiration. The cops and firefighters were trying to resuscitate him and roll him off the bed.

Then there were five single guys living in his house with him, all down on their luck. Then, someone said, "His wife is in the basement." So, I go downstairs, and there's his wife. She's probably 5 feet tall, 105 lbs., from Thailand, and she's crying. Then their two little kids come running out from this bedroom behind a sheet that's strung up across the kitchen, and they don't speak English. His wife barely speaks English. But she just starts crying out, "He no too fat for me! He no too fat for me!"

Oh, that's sad.

Yeah, and it struck me to the heart that this woman loved this guy. He was very special to this group of seven or eight people on the margins of society. Ironically, they were a block away from the biggest church in my town, so the cul-de-sac is stacked with cars of people who are parking and walking down to go to this megachurch for service. And here this guy is basically eating himself to death who has a mail-order bride from Thailand and five buddies who live in his household.

Being a police Chaplain, it's story after story after story like that. I could tell you about making death notifications in the middle of the afternoon to totally unsuspecting people to tell them their spouse has died or their child has died—hanging out with cops who are suicidally depressed because of what they've seen on the job, struggling with dispatchers who are going through divorce and trauma.

So you would definitely consider your work a ministry?

Those kinds of categories bother me—something is ministry and something else isn't ministry. It's not very helpful to draw those lines. But sure, my work is ministry. I just don't think what I do is any more ministry than what someone else does.

At TheHighCalling.org, we often say that all work can be ministry. It can be hard for people to see how everyday work is ministry, though. How about the policemen in your story, for instance. Were they ministers?

Police officers are in such a strange role in our society. They almost never spend time with people at their best. Whether they're pulling you over for a ticket or coming to your house because your spouse just had a heart attack. They have to deal with domestic abuse and suicide and massive car wrecks. These are the worst moments in life, and that's when police officers are with people. So, it's a very traumatic role for them. And you know, some cops are not the least bit pastoral, but a lot of them are very sensitive. It's funny. They say, "We really need these Chaplains to help us with death notifications, because we're no good at stuff like that." But most cops are really good with people. Everything they do—when they pull somebody over, when they arrive at the scene of an automobile accident, how they carry themselves, what kind of words they use, what kind of tone of voice they have—it all becomes ministry in their daily lives.

So, I hear you talking about ministry in terms of relating well to other people—treating other people right. What does the Trinity teach us about relationships in our daily lives?

Some people say, "Anytime you talk about the Trinity, you're a heretic." Because it's impossible to talk about the Trinity without overemphasizing the threeness or overemphasizing the oneness. For me, I definitely err on overemphasizing the threeness. The beauty is the relationship between the three. And the eternal loving relationship between the Father, Son, and the Spirit flows into all of creation. That becomes the calling of all Christians—to be in true, deep, loving relationship with other human beings and with God and even with all of creation.

Boy, there's so much interest in the Trinity right now. People are talking more and more about what the church really is and how we develop communities where people care for one another and live in reconciliation with one another. A lot of this is driven by a newfound love for the theology of the Trinity.

That's a good thing, right?

Absolutely! A lot of Christians in America talk about the Trinity, particularly church people and professionals who get paid to be Christian, like you and me and pastors and seminary professors, and people like that. We talk about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but we don't act as if the Holy Spirit is up to stuff. I imagine this is true in other industries as well. We talk about the Spirit, but when it comes to growing our church or business, it's all about us.

Let's make sure we have better JumboTron screens in our worship center! Do we have enough visitor parking? Do we have beepers for the moms for the nursery? It becomes all about technique and method. But you know what? The Holy Spirit is the author of church growth, the Holy Spirit is the author of salvation, not human beings, not us. Yet we keep saying, "Let's hone our methods. Let's get better at this. Maybe if we had better coffee."

Marketing Online (Ramblin' Dan)

Dan Roloff — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Internally, a group of us from our different programs began a discussion about the use of social media as a marketing tool. The debate was vigorous and diverse. Our focus was divided. How do we use social media to our business advantage? And how do we honor the relationships we’ve built with people in the social media networks?

In the previous post I brought up the debate about online community and relationships. I came down on the side of the viability of online relationships. So if we can use online communities to build individual relationships, then using these relationships as marketing opportunities comes into question. Are they relationships or are they marketing opportunities? Can we, or should we, separate the two?

Relationships or Networking? is a post from a few years back. It looks at the differences between networking and building relationships. It’s worth a quick read, because the rest of this post focuses on marketing. Specifically, the focus is on social media and its use in marketing.

It’s not a debate that is easily resolved. We currently are living in the tension balancing our business needs with our personal relationships. We feel the tension is a good one. It keeps us alert to whether we’re helping people or using them. Our aim is to help, but a simple twitch can cause our aim to be off target.

In moving to the specifics of a social-media strategy, a practical approach emerged.

Rather than assigning staff to specific social media such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Yammer, blogs, etc., invite employees to explore different social media outlets or types and let them find the one or two that fit their comfort level. Before anybody gets too upset, let me say that I’m not suggesting a touchy feely approach to dealing with employees. I’m suggesting a strategy that utilizes a company’s assets to the fullest capacity.

When an employee discovers the social media that best suits their style of communication, they become more motivated to use that tool effectively. Effective communication with communities, groups, customers, or potential customers is the objective.