TheHighCalling.org: Personal Reflections

Finding a Marketing Shoe That Fits

Sam Van Eman — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

We live in the age of awareness. The world feels smaller, its problems are clearer, and its solutions—so they seem—are more manageable. No longer do I picture Africa as a distant place with insurmountable, unimaginable trials. I just see a $10 mosquito net. Creative framing and ingenious invitations have made getting involved a snap. And the sheer number of opportunities provides even the tiniest niche of people with something to do.

Since folks are in the market for buying causes, marketers are in the business of selling them. But not all cause marketing is created equal. Sometimes it misses, and sometimes the shoe fits just right. Here are three variations of cause marketing and why it matters that we know the difference:

Make the cause secondary
Make the cause solitary
Make the cause primary

(RED): Make the cause secondary

According to their website, “(RED) is a simple idea that transforms our incredible collective power as consumers into a financial force to help others in need. (RED) is where desire meets virtue."

Huge brands like Dell and Gap have partnered with (RED), and they claim to have helped 2.5 million lives so far. I like this. What I don’t like is making the cause secondary to the allure of becoming a celebrity.

Bob Garfield, Advertising Age ad critic, makes the following comment about Dell’s 2008 Super Bowl commercial: “The Dell commercial doesn't even try to sell people on charitable giving. It turns the (RED) laptop into a sort of chic magnet . . ., the aids crisis turned into an Axe commercial.”

This approach misses the mark.

15 BELOW JACKET: Make the cause solitary

You can't read the small text in that image, but here's what it says: "EMERGENCY BLANKET: An oversized (40" x 60") poster, printed on newsprint, is sent out to homeless shelters with each 15 Below jacket. As the poster unfolds, one side shows how the coat works with simple illustrations and instructions printed in multiple languages. The other side of the poster features a large image of a blanket. The idea is to tear the poster into strips and stuff it into the multiple pockets of the 15 Below jacket to act as insulation. Stuffed with newspaper, this jacket will insulate the body, helping to ensure survival through the night. In this sense, the medium is more than the message. For someone living on the street, it could be a lifeline."

In this very different example, the cause isn’t the secondary point or even the primary point—it’s the only point: Help the homeless. I don’t believe altruism exists, so I’d guess there are other reasons for this campaign. Nonetheless, it comes undeniably close to acting like Jesus and I like it. Marketing firm, TAXI, made this super cool, highly practical, well-made, necessary coat for the homeless. That’s it. No need to buy anything to get one. You can’t even buy one for yourself.

The campaign inspires me to be hopeful: “Then the King will say to the advertising agency on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For. . . I needed clothes and you clothed me . . .’ ” (From Matthew 25:34, 36).

Check out the site here and wait for it to load – it’s worth it.

TOMS SHOES: Make the cause primary

My third example shifts away from the selfish desires of the first and the more purely philanthropic nature of the second. TOMS Shoes, a for-profit shoe company, sells a product. But it makes a cause primary. Just read their blog. The cause fueled “Chief Shoe Giver,” Blake Mycoskie, to begin this venture, and it fuels his entire global team of employees, interns, and vagabonds. Their cause: “For every pair purchased, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One."

Like the (RED) example, TOMS relies upon our consumer power. Unlike (RED), however, it doesn’t depend upon our desire for stuff. It doesn’t make charity a residual effect to shopping. Rather, it comes first. Yes, you get your own pair of shoes, but more as a Thank You and not as an incentive.

I like this model because it shows a decent relationship between Jesus’ call to care and the room God makes for marketing in the created order. I don’t know how well Blake Mycoskie knows Jesus, but we can appreciate the way he’s found a marketing shoe that fits. And we can applaud his social media marketing agency for doing such a good job with the concept.

As your awareness grows, pick a cause (or causes) to stand on. Just don’t settle for anything. Bad shoes hurt.

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Sam Van Eman is the author of On Earth as It Is in Advertising and the blog New Breed of Advertisers. He is a very active member of HighCallingBlogs.com, an online community that focuses on work and God.

Using Technology to Lead and Love People

Dustin Steeve — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Editor's Note: In this article, Dustin Steeve refers to the upcoming Christian Web Conference. TheHighCalling.org is proud to be cosponsors of the 2009 Christian Web Conference with the Torrey Honors Institute. Register now to join us at the conference in Los Angeles this Fall and hear Mark D. Roberts (director of Laity Lodge) and Marcus Goodyear (senior editor of TheHighCalling.org) in person.

Near frenzy appears to drive the creation and adoption of web technologies. Just when one masters a blog, here comes a Twitter feed. When MySpace finally makes sense, Facebook changes the paradigm. If you’re a working professional you’re no doubt LinkedIn, check your Gmail on your BlackBerry, and periodically find your head in the tag clouds. As the Senior Director for GodBlogCon, now called the Christian Web Conference, it was my job to be aware of emerging web technologies and help you, the web savvy Christian leader, employ them effectively for the cause of Christ.

When I first was asked to assume leadership of the conference, I was excited. I am a leader at heart and have always dreamed of running my own company. I am especially attracted to the web industry. I observed that smart, trendy young people work for web-based companies. Many of our cultural geniuses and top CEOs reside on the top of mountainous tech companies. Tech is a booming industry and opportunity abounds. Who wouldn’t want the respect, power, and credibility of Microsoft’s Bill Gates? To this day, I really think that the web is going places. I see the web as our new social scene, our new town square. The web is full of useful tools that can plug us into its bustling commerce and social scene.

Through my work with the conference these past three years, I observed Christians giving mixed responses to the web. Some dismissed it as a source of porn and other unchristian indecency. Others saw frivolity or luxury in web based expenditures, preferring to reach people through time-tested, traditional media.

And yet to some Christians, the web appeal was strong. These Christians saw opportunity for local, national, or even global outreach via web technologies. Like these visionaries, I saw grand opportunity for Christians through use of the web. My head filled with ideas about employing web tools for evangelism. When I assumed leadership of the conference, I was hoping to help lead Christians to become masters of web technology, to create a place for themselves in the mainstream media of tomorrow. However, my early desires to conquer the web for Christ were put into a right perspective by the professors at my great-books general education program, the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, and Ken Myers of the Mars Hill Audio Journal.

At Torrey, my professors challenged me to think more deeply, to see through the glamorous digital façade of the web to consider the real-life people behind that façade. Professor John Mark Reynolds succinctly gave reason for this when he said,

“Virtual reality is dependent on plain old reality, so it cannot escape harming or helping the souls on line. Because it’s so dependent on the world of concrete, neon, electricity, and physical bodies, it will never replace them. People are not just minds, but minds in bodies. To really know me (all of me), you have to know my whole self which includes my physical self.”

Effective Christian use of the web cannot merely be gauged on site “hits,” awards, or even revenue. It must help people live more Christian lives on- and off-line. Ken Myers pushed me further in my thinking when he reminded me that technology often shapes one’s interaction with the world. “To a kid with a BB gun, everything becomes a target,” Myers said at GodBlogCon in 2008. Myers cited several media ecologists who remarked on the decline in young people’s ability to read deep, extended texts due to habits cultivated by their fast-paced, keyword-search-based web surfing. Myers challenged me to think about the consequences of shallow reading. If the web teaches us to be shallow readers, what does this mean for Christians’ ability to read the Scriptures well?

If we are to fulfill our calling to love our neighbors, then we ought to think beyond mere mastery of our craft to the lives of those who use our products and how those products shape a person’s interaction with the world and walk with God. In the case of the web, conferences like the Christian Web Conference provide a place where Christian leaders can come together, become aware of the latest technologies, but also be immersed in deeply Christian perspective on their impact on the lives of our neighbors. If Christians are going to be leaders using online tools, we cannot lose sight of the web’s potential; simultaneously we cannot be blinded by the flashiness of the web. A leader’s foremost consideration must be the people for whom the web can be useful and how the technology is shaping their lives.

Working and Growing Backwards

Jonathan Dodson — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Mark Twain humorously noted that it would be better if humans were born at the age of 80 and worked backwards. This backwards growth would afford us all the wisdom we would need to navigate the challenges of life. Another great American author F. Scott Fitzgerald picked up this idea in a short story called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, recently popularized by the film starring Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett.

It is an interesting idea and curious story. It seems all of us are short on wisdom, but as the Curious Case proves, even being born 80 doesn't solve all our problems. Still, what if we approached work, family, and leisure with the wisdom of our elders?

Life-Maturing Wisdom

In his book The Making of a Leader, Robert Clinton identifies six stages of a leader. The stages include: Sovereign Foundations, Inner Life Growth, Ministry (or Vocational) Maturing, Life Maturing, Convergence, Afterglow. Clinton's comments regarding our "Life Maturing" stage got me thinking about growing backwards.

He notes that this phase of life, typically occurring in our 40s, begins with intentional and extended reflection on life. This period of reflection is often forced onto us by life circumstances, a major conflict, growing children, or life crisis. What would happen if we began to cultivate these patterns of reflection at an earlier age? What kind of people, families, or communities would emerge? We might become more concerned about how God can shape us through conflict and life—and less concerned about merely navigating our conflicts and challenges. Clinton writes:

During Ministry [or Vocational] Maturing, we attempt to constructively navigate conflict; during Life Maturing, we instead tend to focus on what our conflicts say about us. Overall, relationship with God starts to become far more important to us than ministry success [or workplace success]. Ironically, as we begin to care less about the results of our ministry [or work], our effectiveness, satisfaction, and attractiveness as ministers [or employees] suddenly begins to grow. Our lives become an object of imitation. We are not merely appreciated for our work, we are admired as people.

Reflecting, Not Just Navigating, Through Conflict

Are you driven by work, family, success? Are you more concerned with managing conflict than being sanctified by conflict? How can you begin to care less about results of vocation and more about discipleship through vocation? If we want to imitate Christ, periods of reflection and prayer will be important. Imagine if we became so obsessed with God's agenda in our conflicts, challenges, and vocations that others appreciate our Christlikeness more than our "work."

Reflecting through conflict instead of merely navigating it is not a popular process. In general, our culture values success, results, and output over sanctification, maturity, and reflection. Our busy lives run against the grain of such extended times of reflection. Turning around is hard. However, the result of becoming more process-oriented and more reflective will lead us into more fruitful living, parenting, and community building.

You could start by taking a weekly walk in the woods, alone. Go to a coffee shop without a laptop or PDA. Refuse to answer emails for a day—and journal instead. Have extended discussions with your friends and spouses about what God wants to teach each of you through the challenges and conflicts of your lives.

Reflection is inspiring. Cultivate time for it. Prayer can draw us deeper into communion with God who wants to fill us with wisdom.

Acedia, Rehearsals, and Me

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.

Abundance and Service

Mary E. DeMuth — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Years ago, my husband and I met a friendly couple in our church who invited us to a party. As I put my coat away in their bedroom, I noticed charts everywhere tacked to the walls—proof the couple was gung-ho about a particular business venture.

"I think I know why they had us over," I whispered to my husband. He couldn't believe they would invite us just to introduce us to their business, and he smirked when they mentioned nothing of it that evening.

A week later, we received a phone call from the couple, imploring us to become a part of their amazing business. We declined. They never invited us over again.

Several years later, I sat at a church luncheon next to a woman I hadn't met. She asked, "What's your passion in life?"

Though I hadn't expressed it publicly, I felt God nudging me to say, "I want to be a writer."

She smiled. "Really? Do you know what one of my passions is? To help develop and train new writers!" The result? This professor and published author mentored me. Her servant's heart changed my professional life forever.

Two truths contradict each other when business and Jesus collide: To win in the business world, you have to market yourself, your product, your wares. Yet Jesus didn't come to earth to be served. He came to serve others without expectation of reciprocation. How do we reconcile marketing that appears self-serving with Jesus' admonition to serve others? By exploring fear and abundance.

Our friends' pressure to join their venture unmasked their fear. Worrying about making enough money, they leveraged each new relationship in the church to meet that goal—and then moved on to another church. But the author, who struggled financially, freely gave her expertise and time to someone who couldn't necessarily benefit her. She gave from a place of God's abundance, from her belief in an upside-down kingdom where eternal rewards resulted from simple obedience.

Fear will cause some people to exploit others, but recognizing God's abundance in the here and now, as well as the not-yet, compels us to bless others with our service.

In fact, forsaking fear and embracing God's abundance helps us serve others in four ways.

1)   God's abundance replaces insecurity with confidence.

John wrote, "Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:21-22). When we're insecure, we tend to see people as pawns for financial gain. This attitude does not please God. But when we start obeying him in every aspect of our lives, we have the kind of confidence we need to view customers as fellow image-bearers who deserve to be treated the way we ourselves love to be treated. Our settled confidence in God's goodness is contagious, spilling over into the way we treat people.

2)   God's abundance takes focus off yourself and places it on those you serve, making you both attentive and savvy.

Placing yourself in the customers' shoes gives you keen insight into their needs, their habits, their frustrations. When in those shoes, you create better products, services and technologies. You've heard it before, but customer service is ultimately about understanding customers and meeting their felt needs.

3)   Abundance gives you the long view.

Making an immediate sale is tempered by cultivating life-long loyalty. When you go out of your way to serve people, you connect with them. Even if they never buy anything from you, your service will be a gift to them.

4)   God's abundance puts marketing in perspective.

It's not that marketing or selling is evil, but like anything, it can consume us, particularly in this faltering economy. If we know we are ultimately provided for, marketing becomes more about enhancing someone's life, generating great service, and providing information or a product that benefits the customer. Having abundance actually enhances the marketing experience.

The couple that invited us to their party are a blip in our life story, but the author who gave of her time sacrificially is one of my best friends today. You can bet I buy every book she writes. She served me from the abundance of her heart. As a secondary result, she earned a lifelong customer. She typified Jesus' words, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Serving as Jesus did will produce surprising rewards and keep our hearts in the right place when we market.

Wake Up and Go to Life

Christopher de Vinck — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Many people are no longer blessed with the gift of combining their professional work and their family lives.

During the 1700s and 1800s, our nation was an agrarian society. Fathers woke up in the morning and spent the entire day out back on the fields or tending to the cattle or harvesting the hay. Children carried buckets of milk to the house or jumped in the haylofts. When they were older, they worked beside their fathers tending to the soil. Life wasn't easy, but families worked together.

Today many of us have to separate our work from our families. How many children really know what their fathers and mothers do in the offices or factories?

For many years I was blessed with two worlds: the world of my work as a teacher and the world of my work as a family man. I shared with my children what I learned about education: reading is essential, cooperation is paramount. I promised myself that I would not let my work interfere with my wife and children. I only prepared lessons and graded papers when the children were tucked away for the night. I didn't work on Saturdays or Sundays, for those days were reserved for day trips, church visits, Dairy Queen ice-cream cones, and visits to grandma's house.

It was never difficult for me to create appropriate boundaries between my work life from my family life, because I tried to make both my work and my family essential qualities of what it means to be a father and husband as well as a participant in the broader society.

Many people fall into a habit of cutting off their work-selves from their family-selves. The headaches of the moment, the pressure of deadlines, the difficulty of securing new customers, can send us home exhausted. We can easily slip into habits where we'd rather eat a sandwich and watch a football game instead of taking a walk with our husbands or wives, or reading to our children. Ah, but there are solutions.

We need to find what makes our work holy. When my three children were in college, I remember walking up four flights of stairs on my way to my office saying aloud, each time I stomped on a step: "College, room, and board! College, room, and board!"

Perhaps we need to build into our lives a bit of early paradise. Every two weeks, when my father went to the bank on Monday evenings, he'd return with a half gallon of icecream, the only time we had icecream as children. My father gave his family a simple, loving treat that added a simple purpose to his day's labor.

I like to add little reasons for my labor whenever I can. I think of it as creating an Oprah moment. We know so well how Oprah Winfrey likes to surprise people with gifts, cars, vacations, or with surprise visits from long-ago friends. Each day, when I go to work, I come up with something that one of my coworkers might not expect: a compliment, an article I found in the newspaper, a get-well card, and then I share this little story with my children. It was a wonderful way to connect the family dinner conversations with a day's work and with the people who are in my building.

It is easy to fall into the daily grind: wake up, go to work, come home. Instead, we have the ability to create a grace-filled day: wake up and go to life.

We have the ability to make our jobs our personal duty to integrity, a job well done. What we do can be connected to the people we work with and to the people who wait for us at home.

While we have lost the community of families working together in the fields, we still live in a world among those we love both at home and in the office.

The poet Archibald MacLeish wrote, "The labor or order has no rest." It is our responsibility to create order no matter what our job and no matter what our family life is like. If this order is created in the context of our own high calling to do our best, to exist in a loving society, to honor God and ourselves, we might very well see the fruits of our labor.

Numbering Your Days and Your Finances

Virginia Stem Owens — Sun, 24 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

(Psalm 90:12, NKJV)

Numbering my days is an abiding preoccupation with me, now that I am 67. And the larger that number grows, the more I am conscious of the need to apply my heart to wisdom. Or as the King James Version says it, “to get a heart of wisdom.”

Actuarial charts show the average lifespan of various populations based on their current age. For example, according to numbers supplied by the Social Security Administration, as a woman, I should expect to live another 17 years and nine months. This number can be further refined by factoring in such categories as sex, economic bracket, smoking history, and occupation. One of the most important factors is genetics—how long your own parents lived. Mine lived into their eighties. If I follow their pattern, I should probably overshoot my predicted number.

So should I count on another twenty years? Do I want another twenty years? Not particularly, considering that my mother lived the last decade of her life in the throes of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Those years were a trial to our family and a nightmare for her.

Moreover, my own bodily afflictions, minor though they are compared to hers, on some days make me eager to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Actuarial charts supposedly help with numbering our days as Psalm 90 encourages us to do. But when I apply my heart to wisdom, I confront other truths. First of all, actuarial charts deal only with averages, not individuals. I might die sitting here at my computer at any moment. For none of us really knows the full number of our days. We can only count them day by day, one at a time. Pondering one’s end may be wisdom; trying to predict is not. At best, such an attempt is pointless. At worst, it leads to fear or disappointment.

So what is the point of numbering my days? How does it get me a heart of wisdom? Psalm 90 (vs. 10) also puts the average lifespan at seventy—which would mean three more years for me. “Or by reason of strength, four score.” That would yield another thirteen.

I try that on to see how it feels. How would I live if I knew I had three more years? Would I blow my shrinking retirement nest egg in three years on big travel plans? Would I pay for my graduating granddaughter’s first year in college? Or would I buy my husband the Jaguar he’s always wanted?

Would I live differently if I had thirteen more years? I’d probably just choose a new fence for my chicken yard and dole out the rest in cost-of-living increases . . .

Linking longevity to my financial resources isn’t simple materialism. If one‘s heart lies where one’s treasure is, following the money can show me what I truly value. And knowing where my heart and treasure is—that can be wisdom.

Short-Attention-Span Prayer

William Griffin — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Some years ago, Alan King conducted a series of interviews meant to be an oral history of comedians, especially stand-ups. In conversation with Jerry Seinfeld, King, a rather splendid comedian himself, said to his guest, “Unlike other comics today, you work clean.” By that he meant that Seinfeld didn't use the F-word or its correlatives in his routines. But later in the same interview, both used the J-word (Jesus) in a casual, expletival sort of way.

At the massive insistence of censorious Christians, traditional television networks have been bleeping the F-word right along. Oddly, they're no longer bleeping the J-word as an expletive, and the Christian audience isn't uttering a peep of protest.

As a lifelong member of the publishing community, I'm a libertarian when it comes to the use of words. Hence, I wouldn't restrict the use of the F-word or the J-word in whatever context, holy or unholy. But a personal problem arises. My whole spiritual life has been based on the word Jesus.

In Catholic elementary school, I was taught to do a head bow, albeit a modest one, every time I read or heard the name Jesus; in sixty years I haven't missed once.

I spent eight happy years as a Jesuit (member of the Society of Jesus). The religious order did nothing to exaggerate devotion to the holy name, but the name of Jesus was always surrounded with great warmth and affection.

In the New Testament, there was Philippians 2:10: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.” These words are now thought to come from a very early Christian hymn that was gaining popularity in Philippi.

In the fifth or sixth century, there was the Jesus prayer. As a prayer, it seems to have its source in Matthew 20, where the blind cry out twice, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us” (30-31). As a repetitive prayer, it gets encouragement from Jesus at the end of John, where he says to the apostles, “Up to this point, my dear friends, you haven't used my name when asking the Father for something. Use it; it works; it really works” (16:23-24).

In the fifteenth or sixteenth century, the litany of the holy name appeared; in it Jesus is invoked as, among other things, father of the poor, treasure of the faithful, good shepherd, true light, eternal wisdom, infinite goodness, our way and our life.

When all is said and done, “the name of Jesus is at the heart of Christian prayer” (Catholic Catechism, 1997). Indeed we could do worse than spend the rest of our frenzied prayer lives exploring the wonders of this holy name, but it wouldn't be easy.

In a microwave, toaster-oven sort of world, as Joan Rivers has pointed out, we stand in front of our electronic cookers, urging them to frialate faster.

In a downsizing, right-sizing sort of world, corporations make themselves leaner and their workers meaner; they have to do not only their own but the work of those who've just been laid off.

In a Jiffy Lube, SpeeDee Oil Change sort of world, we meet ourselves coming and going, but could the saints do any better?

Could John of the Cross contemplate the dark night of the soul and go through a revolving door at the same time? Could Teresa of Avila step onto an escalator in her interior castle without messing up her meditation? Could Francis of Assisi, so prone to trance, pray ecstatically and ransom captives at the same time?

Dumb questions all, but for those of us who are working stiffs in a Times Square, Tianamen Square sort of world, these examples show how difficult it is to work and pray. After all, it's a Right Guard, Ban-Roll-On sort of world we sweat in. A Bird's Eye, Burger King sort of world we eat in. A Google, Wikipedia sort of world we do our research in. A Nytol, No-Doz sort of world we try to sleep in.

However uttered, in whatever form, the sweet name of Jesus may be the last, best, short-attention-span prayer the contemporary Christian can utter from Monday through Saturday.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

An afterthought:

Every blasphemy bothers me, unsettles me to the point of wanting to deck the blasphemer; alas, that would be breaking one commandment to defend another. But to maintain some sort of spiritual balance, I've had to come up with a mischievous if mystical thought. Suppose that, when the J-word is tossed around with reckless abandon during the course of a come-dressed-as-you-are bunkhouse brawl, Jesus isn't offended. Not only that, suppose he comes, as he comes to all those who utter his name in moments of need or praise. Is that so far-fetched? If the New Testament is any indication, Jesus has done some of his best work with unpromising people in questionable surroundings.

Growing Through an Economic Winter

John Poch — Sun, 10 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I have a little garden plot in the alley behind our house where I try to grow a few vegetables throughout the year. In the Lubbock winter, it is hard to grow much of anything, but I usually have some lettuces struggling and beets or garlic maturing for a spring harvest. I discovered, by accident, that spinach can weather temperatures into the teens, though it grows mighty slow during the winter. I had tried planting a few rows of it early one December and after a particularly hard freeze, most of it looked wiped out. I thought I'd just let it die and replant come March.

But there were about eight little seedlings that somehow survived. So instead of digging them up, I ignored them—thinking they'd die as the others had. But they held on and when spring arrived, they took off, those eight little plants. We ate spinach for weeks, even giving some away to friends.

During the cold, dry, and less sunny days of January and February, those spinach plants were establishing their roots, entrenching themselves and building below the surface. When the hard season was over and the spring rains and sunny March and April arrived, they burgeoned with the leaves fatter and greener than I'd grown in the best weather.

No soldier goes directly into battle without training and teaching, though he may be eager to defend his country. No lawyer appears before the high courts before she serves as a clerk and works smaller cases, little by little establishing a foundation in jurisprudence. And even if a soldier, lawyer, or a person in any other profession “pays his dues” and “proves himself,” there will be setbacks, periods that don't seem exactly fruitful.

But say your work does flourish; it could be too early and another cold snap could wipe you out. Last year on the high plains, we had a warm late winter when the trees went into early bloom followed by a hard freeze. There was no fruit, no pecans to be found in Lubbock or the surrounding counties.

As a writer in academia under the pressure of “publish or perish,” I only need go through a time when the words are not coming or are not getting published, and I begin to think that I'm in trouble. But even when it seems I might not be productive, I know deep down that if I'm careful, the words, sentences, and the wide-reaching roots of language are there under the surface, maturing, readying themselves for that time of harvest. I submitted my book to publishers and contests for ten years before it was finally published. My second followed four years later. My third collection of poems is following only a year after. I was working (mostly!) all along, establishing those roots below the surface, and the fruit of my labors finally came to the point of harvest. And now? Winter may be around the corner, so I need to recognize that periods of growth come in cycles. If the season is right, I am ready to plant again, do what I can, and let God and nature do their more powerful work.

Are you in a physical or spiritual or economic winter? Is the weather of your workplace an inhospitable climate where little can grow? Do what you can but realize that there are things beyond your control. Weather, for instance. Hold on. Pray. Let your faith establish itself, and let your “roots” go deeper, realizing that it might not be time to flourish. Let suffering and patience produce perseverance producing character producing hope and a bounty that you and others can feast on.

Assuming Positive Intent

Mary E. DeMuth — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Around Mother's Day, my family took me to the local nursery and let me buy an abundance of bedding flowers. The kids brought me breakfast in bed, and my husband Patrick made brunch, complete with homemade chocolate croissants and crab soufflé.

My youngest, Julia, brought me several cards she'd made in different venues: home, Sunday school, and the fourth grade. Sophie, my eldest, created an elaborate many-lined poem, mostly rhyming. She included several coupons for chores around the house, promised to be completed with joy.

Time went by.

Aidan, my son, was in his room rummaging around. Finally, he came down and handed me a torn piece of notebook paper: his card. It said, "I love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day."

Patrick said, "Aidan, you could've taken more time on that."

"But Dad," Aidan said, "that's what I want to say. I can't help it if I can't make long, involved cards."

I'm sure I looked disappointed. Even so, I thanked Aidan, gave him a hug, and we went on our day. Still, I wondered why he'd thoughtlessly scratched out a 30-second card. I got my answer a week later, driving Sophie home.

"Mom," Sophie said, "I need to tell you something."

"Yes, honey?"

"I don't know if Aidan would want me to tell you this, but I think it's important."

"What's that?"

"You remember his card on Mother's Day?"

"Yes, I remember." I pictured the penciled card, ripped in two, words scribbled hastily.

"Well, that's not what he wanted to give you. He won a free massage for you at that food carnival we went to. He looked high and low for it in his room. I even helped him. He realized he couldn't come to you empty-handed, so he wrote that card really fast. But what he really wanted to give you was a certificate for a massage. When he won it, he was so excited."

My heart gave way a bit inside. My dear son, whose love language was gifts, must've been heartbroken. I could picture him receiving the gift certificate, cataloging how long it would be until Mother's Day came around. Then I could see him searching for the elusive certificate. How crushed he must've been. I was immediately thankful that we didn't tease him too much about the card.

Aidan's card reminded me of something I learned about relationships from a counselor. Good family relationships are ones where each member assumes positive intent. Assuming positive intent is a relational term that means we don't automatically jump to negative conclusions about the people in our lives. We give them the benefit of the doubt, even when the evidence might point otherwise.

Assuming positive intent folds nicely into 1 Corinthians 13:7 that says, Love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things . . ." As parents, we bear our children's sorrows, joys, foibles, victories, and needs. We believe God is big enough to shoulder each child's worries. And we hope. We hope for the best, asking God to give us a mindset of wild and playful grace, that when our children disappoint us, we'll still be standing nearby, open-armed.

Assuming positive intent reveals the health of our relationships with our kids. Hoping all things, we make a choice not to jump to conclusions prematurely. We'll believe our children are capable of beauty. We'll ask questions to clarify when we're confused by our children's behavior. We'll hope for the best.

Because, the truth is, our kids often astound us with their love, whether it be an over-the-top massage gift certificate or a humbly made card.

Workplace Gifts and Ice Cream Flavors

Emilie Griffin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

When I first began to practice the life of prayer in a very intentional way, I was working in a major advertising agency in New York City. You probably wouldn't have thought about it as a spiritual place, but it took up a large segment of my life. And a very creative life it was too. I loved my job in spite of the anxieties I often felt. I had to meet deadlines, satisfy expectations, and convince other people to choose the best of several campaigns I was proposing.

At that time, I was eager for a closer relationship to God. I did small things—and large things—to come closer to the life of grace. I prayed. I looked for times of solitude and silence. I went to church often. Sometimes I made retreats. Daily I read favorite Bible passages, especially from the Psalms and the Gospels.

At one point, I came across the notion of spiritual gifts. Some are described in Galatians 5:22: "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Later in the same passage I read, "let us be guided by the Spirit." Earlier in the Scriptures, in Isaiah 11, I found a description of the spirit of the Lord: "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." I was struck by these two lists, which seemed like descriptions of the transformed person. I wrote them down on a three-by-five card and kept it with me as a reminder. These were the qualities I wanted to have. My husband referred to them as my Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavors.

I loved his light remark. But I understand that these qualities can't be ordered by the scoop. They really are gifts. We don't acquire them. They come to us by grace.

Even so, I think we can sometimes spot these gifts in the workplace. Possibly it isn't so easy to see them in ourselves, as in the fellow workers or managers that we admire. One of the most inspiring figures in my own work-life was my mother, Helen Russell Dietrich. She founded and ran three different companies—relatively small ones—and she always envisioned her work in terms of the benefit to others and not to herself. One of the things I noticed about her was her humanity in dealing with members of her staff. When an older woman applied for a job, my mother would sometimes create a job that suited her particular talents. And this was the way she behaved with staffing over time. She noticed another person's talents and tried to make space for them. I had a chance to observe her warm personal style at close range. I worked as a consultant to her firms through much of my adult life, and directly under her, as Executive Vice President, for two years. I knew many of her coworkers and members of her staff. I knew how much they admired her and how she influenced them in positive ways.

My mother rarely talked about her faith. She would probably never have made a Baskin-Robbins list of spiritual gifts. Yet the warmth of her personality told me something about how she relied on God for everything. She often turned to the Bible in difficult moments or when hard decisions had to be made. I don't think she saw her spiritual gifts as a result of her faithfulness. No. It was the other way around. God gave her generous scoops of his grace. And she expressed her thanks whenever she opened the Bible to a passage she loved.

Faith Without Work

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.

Transitioning Into a Ministry of Presence

Becky Garrison — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Despite a divorce and a series of other setbacks, Rosalie Grafe was bursting with joy. We interact via Facebook, and I was struck by how her centered presence always seemed to calm me down. As someone who had just lost several close friends, I asked how she navigated through her transitions and ended up in such a positive place.

In the wake of her divorce and the sudden death of her 18-year-old granddaughter, Rosalie went on a pilgrimage to the monastery of the Community of Northumbria and the pilgrim path to St. Cuthbert’s Cave in northeast England. She had connected with the Community through reading Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community. During her week at Northumbria and with her stays at St. Aidan and St. Hild on Holy Island, the Convent of the Holy Paraclete in Whitby, and Bar Convent in York, Rosalie discovered a regular rhythm of life that helped her to focus her energies on where she should be heading next.

Upon returning to Portland, Oregon, she continued a virtual connection with the Community of Northumbria through their website. Also, she connected in real time as a Companion of the Celtic Community, Way of Columba at Saints Peter and Paul’s, a lay monastic community based in East Portland, Oregon. These two prayer groups provide the online and offline connections that keep her grounded.

Rosalie found herself reflecting on Ananais, who was plucked by God from his home to go and aid Saul (Acts 9:10-11, 17). The story kept speaking to her heart. Like Ananais, she realized she was not called to the solitary life of a hermit. After some prayer, she set up her home as a respite for fellow wandering pilgrims. She named this individual retreat house Quaker Abbey as a reminder of the still silence that she found during her work with the Friends Community. As arthritis and a shrinking retirement budget narrowed her ability to offer hospitality, she set up Quaker Abbey Press, which enables her to do very small print runs of books. This ministry allowed her to give a voice to those writers whose work she wants to illuminate.

Even though these home-based ministries occupied much of her time, she continued to feel a call to help others. But rather than wait for a church or nonprofit to give her something to do, she simply went where her heart told her she was needed.

An evangelical Friend (Quaker) since 1971, she returned to active membership with Portland’s Reedwood Friends Church. During her marriage to an Episcopalian, she had become an active chaperone and support to the youth minister at the Grafe family church in southeast Portland, a role she continues to this day. She watched as nine-year-old acolytes-in-training matured, joined the thriving youth group and then graduated as young adults. Of all that she had accomplished, she counts as most significant the humble service of being a female chaperone for the youth group at almost all the single, male youth minister’s events. She calls this being “a butt in a chair.” In the highly charged legal cases faced by a number of denominations, the role of the chaperone is vital. She continues with both churches and calls herself a "Quakepalian."

I began reflecting on how many Rosalies I’ve met in my life, who smiled at me when I thought I was going to crack up. How do we encourage and nurture these everyday saints who despite their bumps and bruises continue to shine forth proclaiming the love of Christ? Their stories give me hope that I can get through this difficult time with God’s help.

Rosalie illustrates how we need others around us to be our support system to help us navigate through our transitions. While I would prefer to connect with people face-to-face, Rosalie has taught me how one can maintain an online support system as well. So, even if we may feel isolated in our cubicle or home office, we have one more reminder that we are not truly alone.

John Wooden's Hands

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)

Discover Your Gifts, Discover Your Calling

Bill Peel — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Job layoffs and an anemic economy are pushing many Christians to question the purpose of their lives, yet I meet very few who are thinking in terms of the "good works" God had in mind when he designed them.

Each of us has a high calling we are obligated to follow.

When we follow our calling, this brings God great glory and us great joy.

The quest to discover our calling should begin with four facts we know for certain:

Our calling is embodied in our gifts, both natural and spiritual, that were given to us intentionally by divine design.
Our gifts come with a responsibility: "As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Peter 4:10).
Our gifts allow us to do excellent work, make our greatest contribution to the human race, and do the "good works" God had in mind when he designed us.
Sometimes this is difficult. What God has in mind can be costly, inconvenient, and countercultural.

Case in point: During the first three decades of the nineteenth century, William Wilberforce fueled social and spiritual reform in Britain—the abolition of Atlantic slave trade and, eventually, complete emancipation. His work shook the Empire to its core. According to historian John Pollock, the abolition of slave trade was "the greatest moral achievement of the British people."

But Wilberforce almost missed his calling. When he came to Christ at age twenty-five, he was one of the youngest members of Parliament. In search of God’s will for his life, Wilberforce visited John Newton, a repentant slave-trader turned pastor. The young statesman told Newton that since God was surely more interested in religion than politics, he planned to leave parliament and take up ministry. Newton rightly disagreed about what was eternally significant and suggested that God might have him in parliament for a reason. "It is hoped," Newton wrote, "that the Lord has raised you up for the good of the nation."

Indeed he had. On October 28, 1787, Wilberforce journaled: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of Manners [moral values]." The young parliamentarian had discovered the "good works God had prepared in advance" for him—but, works that would cost the British economy dearly.

One historian termed the abolition of slavery as "voluntary econocide" because it triggered government payouts of twenty million pounds sterling to slave owners. (In today’s terms, an economic bailout of slave owners would total more than $500 million dollars.) Ending slavery affected every strata of society as the cost of food and other goods increased and crippled the British economy for an entire generation.

Using his God-given abilities in the power of the Spirit, Wilberforce turned his country from horrendous evil and gave his countrymen the moral backbone to endure the financial recession brought on by emancipation. And as the British economy suffered, God’s Kingdom grew. A revival that had begun in the lower classes in the 1700s erupted into the middle and upper classes in the 1800s, and altered Britain’s moral compass.

When reading about his life, we can see that Wilberforce had a choice. He could have hunkered down, minded his own business, and lived a comfortable life afforded by his family wealth. But instead,he chose to follow Peter’s admonition: to employ his gifts in serving others as a good steward of the manifold grace of God.

The issues Wilberforce took on were much graver and caused a societal crisis with greater economic implications than those we face today. His commitment and courage to use his gifts and follow his calling, no matter what the cost, provide an example for us nationally and individually as we go about our daily work.

What is the "good work" God has called you to do? There’s no time like the present to make sure that the work you do fits the gifts God gave you. After all, " . . . we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:10).

And like Wilberforce, we have a choice.

Integrity Begins With Small Things

Gordon Atkinson — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

When I was 16, a man in our church offered me a job for the Christmas holidays. A local department store needed extra help, and he wanted to hire me to sell small appliances there.

I was surprised at the job offer because I knew absolutely nothing about small appliances. I made milk shakes with my mother's blender on occasion and used a hair dryer in the mornings. But that hardly made me an expert. The man assured me that he could easily teach me everything I needed to know for the job. That didn't seem possible, but I needed the money. And he was an adult. At 16, I had been taught to respect grownups, and I had faith in their wisdom and experience.

We met at the department store the following Monday, and he took me to the small appliance department where they sold things like curlers, makeup mirrors, hair dryers, blenders, and toaster ovens. I received an official customer service badge from the department store and simple instructions:

"Whatever your badge says, you don't work for the store. You work for me. And I work for Brand X.* Just wander around the appliance section. When someone asks which appliance is the best, tell them Brand X is the best."

According to this man, Brand X made the best toasters, blenders, deep fryers, curling irons, hair dryers, and blenders. Everything Brand X made was the best of its kind, and it was my job to tell this to the customers.

And just like that, I was introduced to the dark side of the business world. Everyone was in on the con. The store agreed to allow Brand X employees to pose as customer service experts because they didn't have to pay for additional employees at Christmas. The real employees were briefed about our presence and were happy to let us interact with the customers. It made their jobs easier as well.

I had a sense that something was wrong about the whole thing, but my trust of adults and authority was so deeply instilled that I put aside my sense of right and wrong and handed over my moral authority to the man who signed my paycheck. For two weeks, I dutifully patrolled my three or four aisles and posed as an expert in small appliance wares.

What I was doing was clearly wrong. I was a liar and a fraud. But denial was so easy. The man who hired me was a family friend and a church member. He didn't seem the least bit ashamed of what we were doing. It was just business to him. The store managers and employees seemed to think it was okay. So it was easy for me to cede my responsibility to the authorities and go along.

But my conscience told me the truth. I hated my job. I felt guilty about what I was doing. I found myself hoping that customers wouldn't ask me for help. It was a long two weeks, and I was so glad when they were over. I could have told my parents what was happening and quit the job.

I was in high school and really didn't need the money. But I didn't want to offend anyone or cause my parents to lose faith in a member of our church. It was easier to go along with the whole thing. So that's what I did. I told myself this wasn't a big deal. The Brand X products were probably as good as the others. No one was really getting hurt. I slipped across an important ethical line with hardly a second thought.

The truth is, the small ethical dilemmas we face are very important. They prepare us to deal with harder, more complex issues with more at stake. Had I followed the leading of my conscience in this small and relatively easy circumstance, I might have found some of the more difficult decisions that I faced in the next few years easier to deal with.

Small ethical decisions prepare us for the more important ones. If you can't stand your ground for the little things, you probably won't for the big ones.

--------------------------------------

*The manufacturer's name has been changed.

Kids are Big Business

L. L. Barkat — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Three men were striding down the sidewalk, pinstripe shirts, stiff collars, red ties, solid leather shoes. I crossed the street, pushing a stroller, and grasping my three-year-old firmly by the hand. The men saw me coming, rolled their eyes at each other, and increased their pace.

I bit the edge of my lip. I was hopelessly lost. There was no one else in sight. So I caught up with the men and asked for directions. They answered in clipped speech, looking down at my kids and back up at me without smiling. Then they walked away before I could finish saying thank you.

These are the kinds of experiences that have always made me feel like what I do day in and day out is not so impressive. "I’m just a parent," I think. Then I daydream about getting a “real” job with “real” clothes and “real” pay. In my worst moments, this desire urges me to neglect my kids in lieu of more supposedly intellectual, productive pursuits.

Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making, says he hopes we might “discover that the family, so seemingly insignificant in an age of technology and celebrity, is still the heart of culture, the primary place where most of us are called to cultivate and create.” (Creating, including the creation of human life, gets top billing, since Genesis puts it right up front and reminds us that it was the very work of God in the beginning.) Crouch’s assertion is a pretty intellectual statement about the nature of what I have done and continue to do—holding hands with children while crossing the street; tucking little ones into bed at night with a kiss and a prayer; making beautiful, healthy food; sharing the intimacies of my life with people who don’t yet wear business clothes.

It has been years since that experience on the sidewalk. My children are growing, beginning to express themselves in writing, scientific explorations, philosophical musings, and the complicated dance of social life. Of course I’m biased, but they truly amaze me. I can almost see them sitting at a conference table somewhere, convincing the CEO that, yes, this particular plan will be best for the company and the world at large. Or, I can picture them pushing a stroller down the street.

I was lost on that sunny day when those men walked away briskly. I remember swallowing hard and thinking, “You know, you were children once too. What if no one had stopped their day to deal kindly and attentively with you?” The mere thought brings Crouch’s words home. Parents are in the heart of culture making. Through daily nurture and the modeling of God’s creativity and compassion, we influence the way our kids will someday negotiate a deal, walk downtown with children, or help someone who’s lost her way.

So kids are big business after all. By working intimately and lovingly with them, we help shape dust into souls, much as God did in the beginning.

Celtic Hospitality in the Workplace

Becky Garrison — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:00:00 GMT

The Celts described a porous membrane where the lines between this world and the next blur. They called it "thin space," where in the sacrament of seemingly ordinary and mundane moments, we encounter God.

This idea often eludes me when I go off searching for the God of grandeur. I've made the mistake of thinking God showed up during exalted celebrations held inside hallowed Cathedrals or other elegant and regal acts of worship. But as I learned when I visited Saints Peter and Paul Church in East Portland, Oregon, that it is through ordinary acts of kindness one can find the face of Christ.

Following his pilgrimages to Ireland and Iona, the Rev. Kurt Neilson, author of Urban Iona: Celtic Hospitality in the City, prayed about how to ring the spirit of this Celtic soil back to the grit and grime he encountered while ministering in East Portland, Oregon. As rector of Saints Peter and Paul, he established the Columba Center, which forms the centerpiece of the church's work in the world. By following a common rule of life, these largely lay Monastics put into practice the notion of "thin space."

When I had the opportunity to serve in the church's outreach ministries, I saw firsthand how delineation between outreach volunteer and those they serve became obliterated. At Brigid's Tale, they moved beyond providing food service to having a weekly sit-down family-style meal. I've covered many faith-based feeding programs, but I can't remember the last time I saw one filled with this much love. While social service programs feed people, how many provide the bread of life?

Through Rahab's Sisters, this church works in concert with other parishes and volunteers to host a ministry to prostitutes. They give women a safe place to come and be accepted just as they are. Certainly, the women were grateful for a warm meal, a new pair of underwear, and some toiletries. But more importantly, at least for one evening, they are loved as children of God.

In both these ministries, people are not just serving the homeless a meal or giving clothing to prostitutes. Rather, everyone sits down as fellow companions on the same journey together. Remember the scribe's question in the Story of the Good Samaritan? He asked, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). These ministries are a living answer. They have taken to heart the message of the radical message of welcome found in Hebrews, "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it" (Heb. 13:2).

In his quiet way, Kurt reminded me that Christ was with the outcasts of his day. So, we should consider it a privilege to follow Christ's steps by standing side-by-side with those who are living on the margins.

This past year, I had a financial crisis that almost did me in. Had it not been for those around me who offered similar small but significant acts of kindness, I could have ended up in need of similar outreach services. These experiences humbled me and gave me a newfound sympathy for those I see facing significant losses during these times of economic uncertainty. In the faces of these people I met at Brigid's Table and Rahab's Sisters, I not only caught glimpses of God but my own reflection as well.

Since meeting Kurt, I've been working to incorporate the principle of "thin space" into my everyday life. I've stopped walking around all day with my head buried in my Blackberry. Now, I try to look into the eyes of people I meet and give them a smile. It's a small shift, but disconnecting from my virtual world for a bit allows me to connect more fully with those I meet in real time.

And I confess this practice of smiling at those I encounter went by the wayside when I had a rather negative encounter with my computer's tech support department. So, my discipline remains very much a work-in-progress.

But interacting with this "thin space" has made even very stressful workdays seem more manageable because I am interacting more with others and in the process, connecting to God.

Catching a Glimpse of the Pearl

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.

Wipe Your Feet

David Rupert — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

As a boy, my mother routinely reminded us to wipe our feet when we dashed into the house at full speed. She rarely even looked up as we came in. She just knew that brother and I would have dirty shoes.

Mom had good reason for concern. The empty lots and open fields were our playgrounds. And on the way home from our ventures, we walked through every mud puddle.

As an adult, I still clean my shoes before entering my home after a long day at school or work. I don't need my mother to remind me anymore—I get it because I pay for the carpet.

Recently, I've been thinking about the symbolism of removing the dirt from the world before entering my home. For years, I collected bad attitudes and negativity from the work world and brought them home to my young family. They never knew what my mood was going to be. Silently, hesitantly, they would size me up.

"What kind of day did he have? Can I tell him my problems? Can I share some good news? Will he snap at me for no reason?”

They never knew if I had wiped my feet at the door. The darkness of reports, deadlines, and negative personal interactions often clouded my disposition. Job uncertainty, increased expectations, and an emphasis on efficiency over humanity only made my attitude darker. By the time I got home, this "five o'clock shadow'" darkened my face and my soul. Whether the stubble was a scratchy beard or a scratchy heart, it rubbed my family wrong.

Sure, they wanted me to bring home a paycheck and the security that comes with it. They liked a roof over their heads and food on the table. They enjoyed the middle class comforts of life. But ultimately, they wanted me to bring home joy.

And your family wants the same.

Some job pressures are easy to leave. Just punch the clock and go home. But other work situations can cloud our hearts with the failures and struggles and conflicts. Even when we're off duty, we sometimes carry all that junk with us. Workplace stress is real, but we can't let it steal our joy, determine our moods, or hurt our families.

Leaving the dirt of work behind doesn't mean we have to bear the burdens alone. In the right tone and spirit, we need to talk about work. Our families are genuinely interested in what we do. They have a vested interest, and they care.

Try this. Discuss each day's struggles and triumphs as a family. Be transparent. Show your family how you toil through everyday issues––including both the victories and the defeats. Listen to them share the stories of their daily work, and pray for each other. This is what a healthy home looks like.

May our work bring joy to our families and glory to God.

FOUR EXERCISES TO HELP YOU BRING JOY HOME:

After your workday is done and you are driving home, watch your workplace in your rearview mirror. Watch it get smaller and smaller—until it disappears.
While driving home, talk to God. Commit to him your worries. Ask him to give you a word of peace, a word of joy that you can bring home.
When you pull up in your driveway, sit in your car for a few moments to exhale any "bad air" from the day. Then take a deep breath. This is home.
Just before you enter through your door, methodically wipe your feet on the outside mat. Leave the dirt of the day behind.

When Work and Family Collide

Steve Gibson — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

As our children got older, it only got tougher trying to manage everything.

Infants: Okay, not enough sleep, but no big deal. It's off to work in the morning as normal.

Toddlers: They start talking and awkwardly waddling around. Uh-oh, now it's getting a little more difficult to leave those cute faces every morning.

Junior high: "Dad, how can God be one when there are three of them hanging around?" Uhhh…just a minute. Here are all of those "How to be a Great Business Manager" books, but where did I put that commentary . . . ?

First date (with an older boy): Yikes! Why did I spend all of those late hours at work when I should have been talking to my kids?

Most of us deal with frustrations and high anxiety at work every day. But as a parent with two kids, I discovered trying to juggle between being responsible at work and being a good parent produced a good deal of additional anxiety—and guilt.

I don't have any easy answers. But with kids now in college, I can look back and see the big picture a little more clearly. As a young dad, I often envisioned big events as the route to good parenting. Nice vacations, big Christmas celebrations—they all helped and are today fond memories. However, I discovered the little things often made the big difference in our daily life. Here are three "little things" for parents who are looking to balance work and family:

1) Write a personal note. Forget email. Turn off the cell phone or Blackberry. Handwrite a personal note at least once a week to your kids. It doesn't have to be much. A word of encouragement. Praise for achievement. But resist preaching to them—as parents, we do a lot of verbal correcting most of their young lives. These should be notes of compassion, grace, and love. This is a time to say I care enough about you that I will take time out of my busy, crazy day to handwrite a personal note just to you.

2) Play a game. I know games aren't for everyone. However, there was something about playing games that always brought us together as nothing else did. So, we always tried to play at least one or two games every week, from the time they were small up until they left for college. Games made us laugh, made us talk to one another, made us somewhat vulnerable—and our kids loved seeing a human side of their parents. I could lecture them all day about the virtues of doing homework, but during games we actually talked to one another. As a sidenote, when our kids went away to college, they taught all of their new buddies how to play the same games we played as a family.

3) Pray together. As with many young parents, we prayed with our toddlers at night before going to bed. But for us, the tradition kept going. As the years passed, I've watched my children go through many different growing-up phases. We often had stressful disagreements on what they should and should not do. I said "to-may-to," and they wanted to say "to-mah-to." But for a few minutes every night, we became united under God in prayer. It's amazing to me even now: Such a simple spiritual exercise that required only a few minutes. Yet it became a place where we felt "together," and somehow, for a few minutes, the disagreement on whether to go to a Friday night party with friends seemed a distant issue.

As a parent with grown kids, I can tell you that it never gets easy. But, be encouraged. Sometimes God uses the little things to do far more than we imagine.

Six Days Shall You Worship

Marlo Schalesky — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Where do you worship? When I ask Christian businesspeople that question, I always get the same answer—the church they attend on Sundays. And no wonder. On Sunday mornings, we go to worship services, are called to worship by worship leaders, sing songs led by worship teams. In our culture, worship is what we do on Sunday mornings. Work is what we do the rest of the week.

Only we've got it all wrong. Psalm 100:2-3 says:

Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his . . .

At first glance, these verses don't seem to have anything to do with our work week. That is, until we realize the Hebrew word used for "worship" in verse two is the same word (abad) used in Exodus 20:9: "Six days you shall labor and do all your work . . ." It's also often translated "serve."

Consider the difference when we read Exodus 20:9 in that way: "Six days you shall worship, you shall serve, and do all your business . . ." Worship, then, is not just that thing we do in the church building on Sunday mornings. Worship is what we do in our business; it's what we do the other six days of the week.

If worshipping God, serving him, is for our workday, then how does that change how we go about doing our regular work? Again, Psalm 100 helps us to understand.

Verse two calls us to worship the Lord with gladness. What attitude do we bring to our work? Do we complain about it as if it's a burden? Is our work something we just get through to make a few bucks? Or do we engage in our business with an attitude of joy and thankfulness? If work is worship, then we should be glad to serve.

Psalm 100 also calls us to come before his presence with singing. While our actual work situation may not allow us to literally sing, we can at least pay attention to what's coming out of our mouths at work. If work is worship, then things like grumbling and gossip are out of place. Instead, our speech needs to be more like a song—filled with light and grace.

Verse three reminds us to know that the Lord is God and we are his. We are not the "god" of our workplace. When we manage others, interact with customers, deal with fellow workers in the workplace, we do it with humility knowing that God is the "big boss" and we are not.

In the end, Psalm 100 tells us that worship happens every day, even on work days. It's not just a Sunday event. So work with gladness, grace, and humility, knowing that we are worshipping our real boss in heaven.

Abject Failure Makes Success Sweeter

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.

God Wants to Use You

Ann Voskamp — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Nick Vujicic tells his story. The morning of December 4, 1982, moments after his birth, they laid him in his mother's arms. She held a blunt torso. Her firstborn had no arms. No legs. No limbs. Just this one twisted flap of flesh, a foot flipper. She swaddled him close and prayed and he lived, thrived. Doctors never knew why Nick was born without limbs. Today Nick combs his hair, brushes his teeth, jets around the world on speaking tours, and, astonishingly, even swims.

But it's his words that jolt: ". . . People are touched just by my smile. It's important to be open to the way God wants to use us."

Often we aren't. We think we need to be someone else, somewhere else, for God to use us. We think we need a certain talent, a certain skill, a certain work for God to use us. We think it's about the gifts in us and not the God in us. We forget that his indwelling is the only reason he can use us.

I watch Nick, a man with no biceps, no thighs, just teeth and a "'flipper," get himself a glass of water, type on his keyboard, share his hope story with thousands of hurting people. God uses people willing to minister not out of their strengths but out of real weakness. Isn't that how God himself ministered to the world?

So it is with us. God gives each individual singular gifts, but those talents can only be poured out onto the world through the cracks in our lives. Why do we think we need to be in a better place, spiritually, geographically, financially, professionally, before God can use us? He can't leak out of those who think they have it all together. It's right now, out of our own brokenness in this place, that God seeps out of us and into the world.

It's part of the divine paradox. God gives us gifts, and we offer our talents, the work we do with our hands, our minds, back to God. This act is the very way God himself meets the needs of our community. Martin Luther writes, "God . . . hides himself in the ordinary social functions and stations of life, even the most humble. God himself is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid." In our everyday common work, doing that which we may not even recognize as a particular gift, we bring God to those we serve through our own humility and brokenness.

It may be an encouraging word to a colleague, a hearty handshake when meeting a neighbor. It may be a project well done at work, a warm tone of voice when answering the phone, a line of gratitude in an email.

It may be startlingly simple. Because human gifts ebb and flow and fail, and we really only have one true Gift to offer. To offer in our work, our words, our daily ways, "Here, all I have to give is Christ." He hides himself in all we do so that even the simple, the daily, is enough.

And the truth is, God may never choose to bestow that talent we yearn for, that valued position we jockey for. He may never choose to give even arms or legs. But isn't that the point? God has a plan and it's his, not ours. We may be very receptive to God using us in the ways we imagine, but are we open to the way God wants to use us? He has a unique and distinctive vision for each of us. And it involves using us today, exactly as we are, where we are, doing what we do. For if we can't serve God in this day, in this work, in this brokenness, when will we?

I watch Nick maneuver his wheelchair down a sidewalk. The last I see of him, he's smiling. Turning towards my husband, I murmur lingering angst. "Do you think he ever gets depressed?"

My husband's quiet words echo long, "I'd think it'd be most depressing for him to see all of us who've been given much and don't use it."

I have arms. I have legs. I'm broken. I'm in this place with these people. I have Christ. It's important to be open to the way God wants to use you. It could be as simple, as wonderful, as smiling. It could begin now.

Just Plane Faith

L. L. Barkat — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I despise flying. Sorry for the strong word, but it's true. From the moment I step on a plane, I get this queasy feeling. When the aircraft rushes down the runway and shudders into the sky, I feel faint. The whole time we're airborne, I feel weightless, but not in a good way. More like I'm being dangled over a pit of tigers—and the air between my toes and their teeth is far too thin for my liking.

Imagine the torture it is for me to fly to my annual business conferences. New York to Chicago is bad. New York to California? Unspeakable. All those hours suspended over the tiger pit. If only I could sleep, I could ignore my fears. But no. I fidget. I snack. I get up and go to the bathroom too many times. It's all enough to make me want to stay on the ground.

That's all in a year's work. But there are days, weeks, even months when my faith also feels like a flight to California. I hurtle down some theological runway, and I'm sure this time I'll crash. I fuss and fidget and worry that everyone is going to know I really can't do this faith thing . . . I've got insurmountable spiritual problems, too many doubts to qualify as a Christian.

This is one reason I love the Bible so much. I love the honesty of the people who wrote about faith giants who seemed likely to be disqualified. This honesty makes it possible for me to go to Moses and hear him say, with chutzpah, “Enough already, God. You birthed this people. I don't want to lead them anymore.” Or I can listen to Abraham accuse, “Are you really going to destroy the good people of Sodom and let everyone think you're just a bully in the sky?” I can get out of the boat with Peter, having trusted Jesus, only to realize that in fact I'm about to drown. I love the Bible for giving me permission to be afraid or angry or doubtful about faith.

I say the Bible gives me permission, because it's not silent on these matters. Rather it speaks plainly about people who didn't want to get airborne, were afraid of tigers (both real and hypothetical), didn't have enough courage to sit in the exit row and open the door in case of emergency. And I see that faith is not the complicated business I sometimes make it out to be. Instead, it simply requires that I take the trip, step in, stay on, listen for instructions.

Fidgeting is allowed.

When Doctors Are Stumped

Steve McCoy — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

There are times when we struggle because our lifestyle has been inconvenienced, and there are times when things get so bad that we struggle to make it through the day. My family has experienced the latter throughout 2008.

In July of 2007, my wife had brain surgery for Chiari I Malformation, a congenital problem that hinders the flow of spinal fluid and therefore causes all sorts of physical problems including numbness in her limbs and balance problems, difficulty completing and verbalizing her thoughts, and bad headaches. The surgery was a success, and her symptoms were relieved. Unfortunately Molly's symptoms came back one year later, this July.

This summer, I watched my wife go from very healthy and active to riddled full-blown Chiari symptoms again. Her neurosurgeon confirmed that she needed another round of brain surgery this autumn. Several weeks after the operation, not only had her symptoms not been relieved, but she was worse. She spent nearly four weeks of recovery bedridden, and the doctors are stumped.

Despite all that's happening right now, God has blessed us in many ways. Our church family and friends in the community have done much more than we could dream. They even organized a benefit dinner to help us financially. The massive turnout and support has proved that my wife is beloved by many. As I write this a few days after the benefit dinner, I'm reflecting on what God has done in my life and relationships, and I am struck by a few professional relationships that have been a blessing.

Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." In our adversity, I have discovered how much my "brothers" in Christ love me. Let me offer three examples.

I have wonderful young leaders and coworkers in my church. One of their families watched our kids while Molly was in surgery and recovery for a few days. When Molly's recovery wasn't going well, and they discovered my stress, another leader came to me and said, "If you need time off, don't worry about our church and Sundays. We'll make it work." These coworkers in the Gospel were willing, whatever the cost, to take care of our family and responsibilities.

Another example is my best friend, Joe, who is a pastor. He and his church have been praying for Molly and our family consistently for the past months. There is no question that their devotion to pray has been a part of our motivation to trust God in all circumstances. After we came home from the surgery, Joe brought three large coolers full of frozen meals prepared by his church. He is a great friend in adversity, indeed.

Let me throw out one last example, one that has surprised me. My blog is basically about my work, though it contains other elements as well. I try to point people to good resources for the benefit of the Church. Over the last several weeks, while I have blogged on my wife's condition, surgery, and recovery, I have received dozens and dozens of emails and online messages from people around the world offering words of encouragement, Scripture, prayers, and love. Some of these I will never meet in this life. While cultural critics debate the value of blogs, I have found a network of professional friends through mine that have supported us in prayer.

I thank God for these brothers "born for adversity." They have been God's words and works of great blessing to us in the most painful and frustrating time of our lives. May God receive the glory for what he has done.

Community and the Cubicle

Jonathan Dodson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT

By 2000, forty million American white-collar employees were using the cubicle. What began as a customizable work environment eventually turned into an urban dungeon. Cutting us off from contact with the real world, the cubicle is scorned for suffocating productivity and community. Attempts to correct these individualistic work environments, such as co-working or collaborative workspace, have met with little to moderate success. Does work have to be so isolating?

In a thoughtful essay on tobacco production from Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community, Wendell Berry lists the benefits of tobacco work. (The morality of tobacco work is another issue altogether.) Among them is the practice of “swapping work.” Tobacco, Berry points out, is a very “sociable crop,” one that calls upon the entire community for help in the setting, cutting, stripping, and harvesting of tobacco. He comments:

At these times, neighbors helped each other in order to bring together the many hands that lightened work. Thus, these times of hardest work were also times of big meals and much talk, storytelling and laughter.

I suppose that tobacco farmers could have insisted on doing the work alone, but it wouldn’t have been near as fun or efficient as swapping work. But there’s more merit to work swapping than efficiency. Berry’s reflections reverberate with community. Words like: neighbor, each other, together, many hands, big meals, storytelling, and laughter seem foreign to the professional workplace, even to contemporary expressions of church. Yet, many of these words and concepts occur frequently in New Testament descriptions of the Early Church.

For example, Acts consistently describes a church that experienced a steady state of Christian community, not just meeting one another on weekends. They devoted themselves to sharing meals, sharing needs, sharing possessions, and sharing a mission (Acts 2:42-47). This radical community was in response to the gospel of Christ, a community-cultivating message that enriched the surrounding social fabric of Jerusalem (Acts 4:32-37). The gospel promoted community in private and in public, through the ministry of reconciliation. They sought God-centered reconciliation (Acts 2,7,17), ethnic reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles (Acts 10,15), and social reconciliation of the poor, sick, and lame (Acts 3:1-10; 5:12-16). The gospel of reconciliation brought very different people together publicly and privately, renewing Jerusalem socially and spiritually.

What would it look like to extend the community-cultivating power of the gospel into our cities, into our workplaces, into our churches? How would the workplace change? In the city, when our workload increases, community often declines. We buckle into the cubicle for days, only to emerge a worn-out mess. Berry recounts an increase in community when hard work sets in—more laughter, more meals, and more hands. On the contrary, urban work deadlines often bring about despair, fewer meals, less sleep, and less time at home with the family. Far from enriching community, office work can isolate individuals from coworkers and families. Ironically, Tom Rath has demonstrated that community can increase productivity. In his book, Vital Friends, Rath points out that people with best friends at work are proven to be seven times more engaged in their job!

It would appear that the city has much to learn from the country. Although some vocations are not as sociable as others, the gospel compels us to work for community and reconciliation. To honor, serve, and love those that are different from us, even the employees that get on our nerves. What if you became an agent of reconciliation and community in your workplace? Company morale and output would likely increase, and so would the glory of God in your life. Perhaps some repentance from go-it-alone work is in order. The rural wisdom of “work swapping” could take us a long way in cultivating better work, better relationships, and better communities. Wouldn’t it be great if Christians led the way?

Manage People, Not Robots

Christopher de Vinck — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

As a school administrator, I am responsible for thirty teachers of English. A few come to work late or turn their paperwork in late. Sometimes they seem genuinely disconnected from their work.

When I was a young manager, I thought the best way to go was to follow the negotiated contracts and school handbooks and reprimand my teachers, write formal letters of rebuke and hope that having a heavy hand would make people comply with the rules. They did, for a day or so, and then snapped back to their old habits.

At some point, I decided to help the weaker employees. I got to know their husbands and wives, made sure that they had the needed materials for their classes, sent out extra reminders to them about work that was due. Sometimes I’d just say how much I love who they are, and how frustrated I get with their lapses in responsibilities. "I need your help," I’d say. Their help lasted for a day or so, until they bounced back to their old habits. Same results as before, but my new approach left a smile on their face.

One of my sloppy teachers is one of my best teachers. She makes the students laugh. They read many novels and plays and write wonderful essays about themselves. Whenever I see this teacher, I think of a disorganized Mary Poppins: disheveled, loaded down with bags and books, and yet also filled with a joy about who she is and about the goodness and potential of her students.

Blessed are the pure of heart. We can easily be blinded by unimportant things in our daily work and miss seeing the true labor. Life is sloppy. If we force all those who work for us into the same cubbyhole with the same rules and regulations, we may create a work environment that values rules and symmetry and frustrates innovation and charm.

We are called, each day, to tend to the lilies of the field. If we work with our God-given talents, our human failings will be minor footnotes to the great history of our lives. I would rather have a happy teacher reading Robert Frost aloud to her students than an unhappy teacher maintaining a neat room and filling out forms on time.

One of the many things that I learned in my graduate studies in administration at Columbia University was hiring criteria. The best workers are those who know their subject matter, deeply care about the people they serve, and have a unique, open personality.

Would I like all the people who work for me to come in on time? Yes. Would I like reports created in a timely manner? Of course. But I am a manager who learned long ago that I manage people, not robots. And if I manage people, I make sure that I treat them as my brothers and sisters, as my neighbors, as my friends. I share my vision for them and for their students and celebrate who they are. And at the end of the year, if the children became better readers, writers, and people, I don’t care how many missing district reports there are.

Rejoice in the high calling of our vocations, for it is in the joy where we find the sort of organization that truly matters.

A Theology of Service

Lyn Baker — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Being a waitress is a challenge. I know, I did it for years. In our culture, waiting tables is just a bit above collecting garbage, with all due respect to garbage collectors. It's honest work, but let's face it, you don't get much respect. The hours are long, it's physically demanding, people can be difficult, and tips miserly. Even with all that, the biggest challenge is the challenge to your self -esteem.

Waiting on someone is the simplest example of service, and it got me thinking about the dynamics of serving. Webster's defines "to serve" as "to be of use, to furnish or supply with something needed or desired" and service as "to be of help, use, benefit, contribution to the welfare of others." Webster's also notes that the word service comes from the Latin root servitium: the condition of a slave.

Service implies there is a lack somewhere, a need to be filled. A waitress serves because someone is hungry. In a way, all service acknowledges that we live in a broken world, permeated with "not enough"—not enough food, time, money, love, attention. The variations on this theme are endless and experienced by everyone.

We live in a world of lack, surrounded by unmet needs and the walking wounded just like us. But even the poorest among us have something to offer, whether it is a smile, a kind word, or five loaves and two small fish. The smallest act of service goes toward patching a hole in the moth-eaten universe we inhabit.

Serving others is a vote for hope. In giving service to others, we ourselves experience lack. We lose something through the giving. It is as though we swing across the abyss of our own need, trusting that the thin thread of compassion will land us safely on the other side with something to offer. We are trusting that we will have "enough" time, talent, or treasure to be of service and still have our own needs met. Most of all, serving others is a vote of confidence in the Creator of the universe, acknowledging that he will provide as we give ourselves away.

Take the simple act of serving someone at a meal. If I "wait" on you, I am risking that there won't be enough food for me. If I serve you first, I am making a statement that your needs take precedence over mine. If I take the risk of serving you, I am trusting that God will provide for me, but I have no guarantee except for his character.

In Luke 9, Jesus was surrounded by thousands of hungry people. There were only the smallest of resources available . . . five loaves and two fish.

He was grateful for what he had and lifted it to heaven with a prayer of thanks. He believed and trusted his Father in heaven for both his ability and desire to provide what was needed. And then the miracle happened. He continued to give out the food. He and his disciples served the gathering of 5,000. One translation says, “They all ate to their heart's content; and when the scraps they left were picked up, they filled twelve great baskets.”

The story of the loaves and fishes illustrates the abundance available through God when we approach him with gratitude and trust. This is how Jesus lived his life, risking, trusting, serving. Let us go and do likewise.

For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. Luke 22:27

Forgetting to Remember God

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.