Blog Archive
Church and Business Reconciled?
Friday, 11th May, 2012
(Jesus) said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Do business with these until I come back.” ‘ Luke 19:12-13
Christian social entrepreneur Lord Andrew Mawson was involved in a debate on Radio 4 earlier this year. In the Beyond Belief programme examining the protestant work ethic, he made some comments about the 21st century church in this country;
“The churches in this country are in crisis. They are not engaging with a whole generation because they got caught up with the technocratic/bureaucratic world from the 70s. They’ve got a real problem….Faith communities need to drop some of their ways of thinking and move into the modern world. Part of the reason we haven’t done this is because we’ve got hang ups from 70s about money and enterprise and business and we need to dump that liberal nonsense because it’s been a disaster, and move into the world that real people know.”
Liberal nonsense? Strong stuff! But I think that those of us in the business world know what he means. We, the Church, think we can make an impact by setting up soup kitchens to help the poor. But there is little discussion of setting up businesses which can create jobs, providing people with paid work so that they can eat soup in their own kitchen. Not to mention giving them the dignity of labour; including meaning and purpose and a stake in society. As Dr David Landrum, Director of Advocacy at the UK Evangelical Alliance, says;
“Our most hurting and broken communities in the UK need Kingdom oriented businesses. When we talk about justice, restoration, and renewal of these communities, on the most practical level, alongside sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, we are talking about jobs and employment. If we want to see transformed lives, we need to see business as mission – and take a lead.”
The truth is that business provides a great way of building the Kingdom. For me the key question is this; if it is business that shapes the world, then why can’t the Church work in and through business to shape the world for good and for God? Shaping it for good brings wealth creation in communities, with greater justice and relief from poverty for the world’s poor, with the dignity of useful labour. Shaping it for God brings ‘life in its fullness’, a life reconnected with the One who made us and loves us, bringing hope and meaning and purpose. All of that is good news and is the motivation for Kingdom building businesses.
So, can the Church make the change that Andrew Mawson calls for? Well it seems that the tide may be turning. The “Business as Mission” movement has seen many Christians heading for the business world, choosing running a business as their way of changing the world into a more Kingdom-like shape. We have been in touch with many of these businesses over the past few years, and this country and beyond. But recently we’ve noticed a new trend too; churches in this country starting and running businesses as a way of impacting their local community. While researching our new book we heard of a milkshake bar set up by a church to provide training and employment to some local youngsters, and a fun place to hang out for others who are customers. We know of several churches running coffee shops, and the leaders from yet another church have set up an estate agency on the high street. These are real, viable, sustainable and profitable businesses with a Kingdom impact, and transformation is happening.
Our country has a major economic problem at the moment, which is affecting the lives of many of the people around us. Surely part of the good news that we offer should be real help with this problem. And I think that the Church is grasping the vision.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/church-and-business-reconciled/
Mary’s Bottom Line
Wednesday, 7th March, 2012
I don’t usually promote TV programmes, but I think that the upcoming Channel 4 programme “Mary’s Bottom Line” will be very interesting viewing. Mary Portas, Queen of Shops and Queen of Frocks, is attempting to become the Queen of Jobs. She is trying to show that it is possible to revive the UK’s manufacturing industry, and she’s set up a factory to make lingerie. Knickers to be precise. And she’s already hired 8 apprentices to train into the business, in the traditional textile manufacturing town of Middleton.
Thirty years ago, Middleton was an industrial hub with 11 clothing factories. Today a fifth of its population is counted as young unemployed. A family firm since 1935, Mary is passionate about the level of joblessness: “I was looking at what we gave away as a country. What we gave away was people, communities, a sense of belonging. The women there said, ‘It was like our family, Mary. My mother worked here, my sisters, three cousins over there. When the factory closed it was the worst day of my life.’ And we gave away that for sweatshops. The heartbreak of it.”
That story is replicated across the country. Unemployment, especially youth unemployment is a national scandal. How can we speak good news into these broken communities? Dr David Landrum from the UK Evangelical Alliance has an idea: “Our most hurting and broken communities in the UK need Kingdom oriented businesses. When we talk about justice, restoration, and renewal of these communities, on the most practical level, alongside sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, we are talking about jobs and employment. If we want to see transformed lives, we need to see business as mission – and take a lead.”
Mary Portas says: “I could go out into the street and replicate this success 10 times over. We have a real opportunity here. ….What do these people need? They need to be trained; they need a sense of belonging. That’s what UK manufacturing’s about, not competing with China. We don’t need to compete. We can create something else.”
Any Kingdom minded entrepreneurs out there ready to rise to the challenge? What would Jesus do? Well faced with the problems we have in our society he might start a new carpentry business!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/marys-bottom-line/
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
Tuesday, 7th February, 2012
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? Luke 12:56
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? The Disney film The Three Little Pigs, in which the plucky heroes held their own against the wicked wolf, was released in 1933. In the same year in the US the Great Depression had the country in its grip. Editorial cartoons showed bankers jumping out of windows rather than face the questionable economic future. Queues of people looking for work stretched along the roads in some cities. The short film was extremely successful because it somehow tapped into the national mood. Americans, like the pigs, hoped that they were able to overcome adversity through hard work, invention and practicality.
A US study, from the Kauffman Foundation, found that more than half of the companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market, along with nearly half of the firms on the 2008 Inc. list of America’s fastest-growing companies. The report also suggests a broader economic trend, with job creation from startup companies proving to be less volatile and sensitive to downturns when compared to the overall economy. Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, commented “History has demonstrated this time and again: new firms create new jobs and fuel our economy. Policies that support entrepreneurship support recovery.”
I hope our government in the UK knows that! We need more entrepreneurs to get us out of the spot we’re in.
Jesus talks about recognising the times that we’re in. If we do that, we might recognise a business opportunity! And if unemployment is one of the biggest problems our country faces then maybe we can help to do something about that. All of which is good news!
Is God calling you to start a business? If you’re not sure, why don’t you ask him. There’s no need to be afraid!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/who%e2%80%99s-afraid-of-the-big-bad-wolf/
Peace and Justice in 2012
Saturday, 31st December, 2011
Happy New Year! January 1st is officially World Day of Peace, and thinking about world peace is a good way to start a new season in our lives. What has peace got to do with business? Businesses may or may not thrive in peacetime, depending what you’re selling! But for those of us involved in business with God at the helm, Kingdom building businesses, then there is a strong link. In his New Year message for 2012, the Pope says “Peace for all is the fruit of justice for all, and no one can shirk this essential task of promoting justice, according to one’s particular areas of competence and responsibility”. Peace and justice are both Kingdom values, and one aim of Kingdom businesses is to promote justice.
We see a lot of injustice in the world around us. Events in the UK have highlighted some areas during 2011. Financial injustice, or exploitation, whether it’s within a society or between nations, will always hinder peace. An unjust society that does not provide useful work for many of its young people, denying them hope for the future, cannot expect to be at peace. So, how can we promote justice? If we are in business, then our areas of competence and responsibility allow us to promote justice through creating jobs, through creating wealth to be shared by all and through investing in individuals. Justice is never impersonal. And new patterns of investment, such as impact investment, can mean that we have great leverage on increasing justice across our society. To find out more check it out here in the Church Times.
None of this is possible without God, our help and our inspiration. As the Pope says; “It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true … an unconditional return to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love? Love takes delight in truth, it is the force that enables us to make a commitment to truth, to justice, to peace, because it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
I wish you the Presence of the living God throughout 2012….and beyond!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/peace-and-justice-in-2012/
The Prophet Richard?
Tuesday, 29th November, 2011
Sir Richard Branson’s new book makes very interesting reading. In “Screw Business as Usual” he outlines his vision for nothing less than global transformation. He asks; “Can we bring more meaning to our lives and help change the world at the same time”. He wants to see “…a whole new way of doing things, solving major problems and turning our work into something we both love and are proud of.” His proposed solution is a new way of doing business. “It is time to……shift our values, to switch from a profit focus to caring for people, communities and the planet.” A prophetic voice, you might think.
And while we’re talking about prophetic voices from outside the Church, did you see the TV programme When Bankers were Good? It might still be on BBC iPlayer if you’re lucky. Is this really the “anti-Christian” BBC extolling the virtues of Quaker bankers? It seems so. The programme’s blurb affirms “Samuel Gurney was a Quaker whose honest prudence shone through the financial storms of the 1820s and whose wealth helped the work of his sister, prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, who is immortalised on today’s five pound note.” And the programme asks why can’t contemporary bankers go back to those principles of thrift and philanthropy. As John Wesley affirmed a century earlier “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”
The world, it seems, wants business to change. The voices, powerful voices, are being heard out there. The Church, who you might think would be driving this new found hunger for ethics and transformative business, is in danger of being left behind. Business can change the world for good, but it can also change the world for God. Richard Branson writes “I have a great belief that we-ordinary people everywhere- not only want to do the right thing, but we will do the right thing. We will fix things, not just because we have no choice, but because this life and this world are all we have.” Whereas I might agree with the main thrust of his argument about doing good through business, I cannot agree with him here. I think we have to help to alleviate poverty and bring justice precisely because this life and this world are NOT all we have! I want to see the Kingdom coming. I want to see its fruits now….and for eternity. I want to see businesses with social and environmental impact, but also bringing transformation through a spiritual bottom line.
I thank God that there are Kingdom building business people in this country who are helping to drive that change forward. It is part of the Church’s mission; and it could be a powerful strategy for the 21st century. To find out more about Business as Mission, Spiritual Bottom Lines and our predecessors the Victorian Quakers, check out the free resource centre in our shop.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-prophet-richard/
Spooky or Sparky? A message for Halloween.
Monday, 31st October, 2011
With Halloween coming up the TV schedules are filled with seasonal offerings. They expect us to want to be scared at this time of year! I don’t know about you, but I’m not a great fan of horror movies. I get frightened too easily. I still remember the time I went to see the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead as a student…and actually fell of my seat as I jumped at one particularly scary bit. And as I went I threw my popcorn into the air, showering those around me! No, I don’t like horror movies.
But I’m in a minority it seems. There is something of a zombie revival in the Uk…if that’s the right word. There’s the constant stream of new zombie films; even Brad Pitt is getting in on the act, with World War Z. And then there are the computer games; if you have or if you know any teenage children then you’ll know all about these! And then last weekend around 3,000 people dressed as zombies and took to the streets of Brighton. It’s still not clear to me why, but when they were asked they replied they were doing it for fun. It’s the latest proof, if any was needed, that the undead are really on the march – culturally at least.
This is such a pervasive phenomenon that serious people are beginning to ask what it tells us about our society. It’s often been argued that the boom in sci-fi films and books of alien attack in America in the 50s and 60s was some sort of expression of the fear of Soviet invasion. So, what fear or feeling is driving the current zombie craze?
Academics and commentators are trying to explain it. The University of Winchester will soon become the first university in the UK to offer a study module devoted entirely to zombies. Their specialist lecturer said “We’re living through the hardest economic times in most young people’s memories. Maybe zombies speak to austerity Britain in a way other monsters don’t.” And the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research agrees. Their director said “Even before the global economic crisis we saw young, unskilled young men finding it much harder to get a foothold in the labour market and since the crisis we’ve seen a rocketing of youth unemployment. There is something in the idea that if you can’t see a future, if you don’t have a sense of progress for yourself personally, then you are stuck in the present tense, and this would lend itself to the notion of a kind of recurrent nightmare of repeatedly being a living-dead.”
It seems that the current obsession with zombies somehow reflects the pointlessness and emptiness of modern lives for many people. They feel like the walking dead.
And yet…..I suppose the saints we celebrate on All Saints day really ARE the living dead. They died and are now alive. Just as Jesus died and rose from the grave. But not as a zombie! The accounts in the gospels of what happened when Jesus came back to life after the crucifixion are important, because they tell us the pattern for our resurrection life too. Jesus talked to his friends, they could recognise him, he ate with them, he cooked for them. So OK he appeared through locked doors, but he was still Jesus. Not a ghost, and certainly not a zombie.
The resurrection life is as far away from zombie-ville as we could possibly imagine. The great multitude described in our reading from Revelation are truly alive. Not living a grey half life. The life they have is a reward for going through the hard times in this world; they’ve suffered, they’ve come through and they find ….well they find heaven.
This is what Jesus described as life in its fullness. And it’s not just for the future. It’s that sort of life that our zombie fans are missing out on now. What both they and we agree on is that life is not just confined to the physical life of this body. There is life beyond the grave. But because of what they experience now they assume that life beyond death is as bad as that. Whereas because of what we experience now in and through Jesus we are very optimistic about life beyond death. Our present feeds our expectations for the future. It will be great.
But it seems to work the other way round too. CS Lewis writes about how eternity feeds back into our lives now. In the great divorce, which is about heaven and hell he writes from the heavenly side;
‘The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.’
If CS Lewis is right, and I think he is, then we are surrounded by people who are already in Hell. We can do something about that! If ever there was a time for good news, now is it. In Jesus people find the meaning and purpose and hope they can’t find anywhere else. And that reminds me of spiritual bottom lines. If you run a business check here to find out about quadruple bottom lines. If you don’t, then start considering what your own spiritual bottom line might look like. Think carbon footprint but with eternal consequences!
This week will see both Halloween and All Saints Day. Which are you? Spooky or sparky? The living dead or eternally living?
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/spooky-or-sparky-a-message-for-halloween/
Business as Usual?
Thursday, 6th October, 2011
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” Luke 12:48
The party conference season is upon us in the UK. And the politicians usually have something to say about business. After all, the parties have to agree that in our system it is business that creates the wealth that we all hope to share. And so, even the Labour party leader Ed Miliband managed to say some positive things about business in his address to his party’s conference. Political commentator for the BBC Robert Peston summarised it thus; “A happier, more cohesive society would be filled with businesses that offer rich and fulfilling employment, don’t pollute, don’t impose big risks on taxpayers, pay taxes that more than cover their net drain on social resources, train the younger generation for life in an uncertain economic world, and so on.” Peston then goes on to wonder whether governments can foster good businesses and weed out bad ones. Rolls Royce good, Southern Cross bad is clear, but how would we develop more Rolls Royces and how would we bring all of those “good” qualities into a business that provides care for the vulnerable when there is often little money to pay for that care.
And yet the idea of a “good” business and the role it plays in society is important. Is it something that the Church has something to say about? There seems to be a gulf between economics and theology. American commentator Susan Lee, who is both an economist and theologian, has tried to build a bridge between the two spheres. At a 2010 conference she shared a stage with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and tried to explain to him; “Economists are interested in how to make the pie larger. Theologians are interested in how to divide the pie. And so many theologians treat capitalism like a Chinese menu. They pick the wealth-distribution parts and discard the wealth-creation parts. They assume there can be: work without incentives, enterprise without income inequality, investment without market-rates of return. But picking and choosing isn’t an option. Capitalism is an integrated system. And it’s this integration that creates the wealth-making, which is the basis for wealth-sharing.”
This lack of integration has been true for the most part in our experience; it’s all rolled in with the sacred secular divide. We assume that God is interested in what we see as the worthy task of wealth distribution but not in the “unworthy” task of wealth creation. Of course distribution matters; we want to see a fair and just society. But profit is not a dirty word. Profit is what there is to be shared.
While Ms Lee claims that she did not persuade the Archbishop to her point of view, other parts of the Church are getting the message. The Pope said in his New Year message at the beginning of 2009; “… the illusion that a policy of mere redistribution of existing wealth can definitively resolve the problem must be set aside. In a modern economy, the value of assets is utterly dependent on the capacity to generate revenue in the present and the future. Wealth creation therefore becomes an inescapable duty, which must be kept in mind if the fight against material poverty is to be effective in the long term.”
Good distribution is necessary but not sufficient; there must also be something to distribute. Wealth creation is necessary but not sufficient; it must be for the common good. We need to be able to think of both sides of the coin. As London based city lawyer James Featherby writes in The White Swan Formula, “Good business will not answer the world’s problems, but we will struggle to solve the problems of the world without it.”
All three commentators that we have quoted here agree on one thing; ethical business is the way forward. Ethical business will lead to the creation of wealth that will then be distributed fairly. A major problem we see across the world at the moment is that the pie is most definitely getting smaller, and no matter how we cut the pie it is the people at the bottom of the pile who suffer first, and suffer most. Christians can, and should, lead the way in creating ethical businesses which consider both creating and distributing the pie.
Jesus said “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” He also told a story about 3 slaves who were given large sums of money by their master, who was then very upset when one of them didn’t use that money to generate more. I think that those of us who have the money and the capability to use business to generate wealth for the common good, have a God given responsibility to do so. No matter which political party we support!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/business-as-usual/
Playing it safe?
Monday, 12th September, 2011
“…the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” Matthew 25:18
Holidays give us the time to reflect. And this summer, while I was in Switzerland for a week, there was one thing I reflected on more than anything else. Boldness. Let me explain.
Switzerland is an amazing country, European and so quite like home…but very different in some ways. It might be because they’re not part of the EU, but I noticed a real difference in attitude to health and safety from the one we have got used to in the UK. Nowadays we daren’t do anything much here for fear of the health and safety police! But the Swiss don’t seem to be paralysed in the same way. I first noticed it when the friend I was staying with called in the chimney sweep. He arrived at her 3rd floor apartment and calmly proceeded to walk from the balcony up onto the roof and start sweeping the chimney from the top down! No harness, or scaffolding, just the sure footedness of doing it day after day. And then I noticed it again when we were walking in the mountains. Some of the footpaths are narrow, with a steep drop, and yet there are no hand rails around them to make them “safe”. There is a real risk that you might fall off! How exhilarating! I can be an adult and take responsibility for myself, and not worry about suing somebody who failed to take responsibility for me. I can take risks if I want to.
And on reflection, it seems to me that as Christians we are called to be risk takers. Not risks for the thrill of it, but risks in order to get whatever Jesus calls us to do done (which might end up being thrilling!). It would be a shame if the prevailing culture led us to try to play it safe. Playing it safe is not a Biblical concept. Boldness is. Can you name me one Bible hero who played it safe? Jonah tried to, and look what happened to him! And thank God Jesus didn’t play it safe (“you carry on like that lad and they’ll nail you to a cross…better tone it down a bit”). In fact Jesus told several stories specifically about not playing it safe. One of them is recorded in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25 starting at verse 14. You know the story; a man was going on a journey and he called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. He gave one five bags of gold, another two bags, and another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. The one with two bags of gold did the same and gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. And when the master came back he was not at all pleased with the one who had played it safe and buried the money! Read for yourself what happened to him.
For those of us in business, this parable is a powerful and challenging one. It’s about boldly growing and investing. If I want Jesus to say to me well done good and faithful slave, I need to take some risks with what He has given me in order to grow the Kingdom. In fact, if I follow his lead and his call in my business I will probably find that it is a risky route he is leading me on. But even if we’re not in business, we are still called to be risk takers rather than risk avoiders. And what that looks like for you is a prayerful reflection of your own!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/playing-it-safe/
The Spirit of Capitalism
Wednesday, 27th July, 2011
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
If we’re working in business can we stay spiritually neutral? Is there a middle ground where we can operate that doesn’t require us to be thinking with our Christian heads on, but where we can just fit in with the prevailing climate we’re working in? These are clearly important questions to think about for those of us who are Christians in business.
To remain spiritually neutral implies that there is a spiritual neutrality to be had! I’m not sure that the Bible leads us to believe that. At the beginning of the last century the German scholar Max Weber wrote that capitalism represented “the disenchantment of the world”. Many people would question that conclusion these days. It seems more likely in hindsight that capitalism is itself a sort of enchantment. In the 19th century Thomas Carlyle had written that capitalism “bears the gospel of Mammonism” and renders its devotees “spell bound”. And in the middle of the 20th century, in her novel The Blessing, the English novelist Nancy Mitford goes further by putting these prophetic words into the mouth of American Hector Dexter, who explained why he wanted to see a bottle of Coca-Cola on every table in Western Europe:
When I say a bottle of Coca-Cola I mean it metaphorically speaking, I mean it as an outward and visible sign of something inward and spiritual. I mean it as if each Coca-Cola bottle contained a djinn, as if that djinn was our great American civilisation ready to spring out of each bottle and cover the whole global universe with its great wide wings.
It seems that capitalism is not just another spirituality, it is a sacramental one too. And one that is evangelistic, spreading itself across the whole world, changing lifestyles…turning people into consumers. And when we see the effects of consumerism on the lives of those affected by it, spell bound does seem a reasonable way to look at it. People are driven into debt and beyond through being held in its sway.
Jesus warned “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Mammon has been translated variously as money or wealth, but neither really captures the idea of mammon that I think Jesus is talking about. It’s more personal than that. He says mammon can be a master in the same way that God is; it can suck the true life out of us and leave us worrying about what to eat, or drink or wear instead of developing a trusting relationship with God. It is a false god; and we can develop an alternative spirituality based on serving that god.
And that applies to those who work in the system as well as consumers; it can hold business leaders spell bound too.
Can we remain spiritually neutral? I don’t think so. If we’re not serving the Spirit of God, then we might find that we’re serving the Spirit of Capitalism.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-spirit-of-capitalism/
Success Kingdom Style
Tuesday, 5th July, 2011
“Woe to you when all speak well of you….” Luke 6:26
We all like to have a reputation. But our reputation with God might well be different from our reputation with people. And it seems that when all people speak well of us, we increase the risk of having God think badly of us. We can get caught up in our own success; we start to believe our own publicity! And we can forget the One on whom our real success depends.
Just think of Solomon. God declared he loved him when he was born, just as he loved his father David. A good start. And when Solomon became king, he famously asked God for an understanding mind and the ability to discern between good and evil. Or wisdom, as we usually say. And that pleased God too. And God gave him wisdom, and riches and honour thrown in with the package. He was so wise and rich that not just the people of Israel were impressed; people from other countries heard about it and came just to see him. The Bible says that the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom. Talk about being an A list celebrity. Solomon had made it! He had horses and chariots and silver and gold and more gold and amazing clothes. 21st century bling is nothing compared to Solomon in all his glory! And given all that it’s hardly surprising that he didn’t remain grounded. He started to think he could do anything he wanted. He clearly liked women, and then as now, it is the world’s way that a powerful man has his pick of women. Like a premier league footballer. Or even a prince of Monaco. And despite the wisdom that God had given him, he lost the ability to tell good from evil. In amongst his hundreds of foreign wives and concubines, there were some who led him to other gods. Having built the temple to the one true God, he set about building temples to false gods. And God was angry with him. Very angry. But I wonder if he even noticed, because he wasn’t listening to God any more.
Solomon had it all…and he lost the only thing that mattered. His closeness to God.
If Solomon can lose it then we’d better watch out. Worldly success is hard to deal with. No wonder Jesus said “woe to you when all speak well of you”. But when he said that, he was talking about the church of his day, about the people of God. Not those outside. He goes on to say that they spoke well of the false prophets (and of course treated the true prophets very badly indeed). And how often have we seen church “celebrities” take a tumble, seduced by money and sex out of a proper relationship with God.
So…..what IS success Kingdom style? Well, it’s not celebrity. It’s not wealth. It’s not about people speaking well of you. It’s not about the Church speaking well of you. It might have many different forms on the outside, but just one form on the inside. A humble heart and a close and constant relationship with God. If Solomon had carried on praying his prayer every day for the rest of his life, and listening for the answer, then he might not have gone wrong.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/success-kingdom-style/
Vocation, vocation, vocation
Tuesday, 31st May, 2011
“Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.” Psalm 33:3
Did you watch the ITV series Britain’s Best Dish? I’m afraid I got really hooked on it, and had to keep catching up on iplayer. And the series had a fairytale ending. After all the regional heats and finals and the national semi-finals, the grand final was won by 15 year old Conor McLean. The apparently unemotional Scottish boy was Mr Cool throughout the competition, coping with all the stress of cooking live for judges and critics without turning a hair. And he remained pretty cool when he heard he’d won, receiving the £10,000 prize and a trophy. But there was one surprise still to come. The team at the Savoy, who had been involved in the semi-final, were so impressed with Conor that they offered him an apprenticeship with them, so that he can train to be a chef in their world famous kitchens. It was when he heard this that Mr Cool finally broke down in tears! This was his dream come true; his heart’s desire wasn’t to win a competition, but to become a chef. And his career has now started.
It’s wonderful to find out what it is we really want to do, what we were created to do. Because God surely has a vocation for each one of us. We talk about singing from the same hymn sheet, and of course as a Church the people of God are called to live together and work together as one body, hopefully in harmony. But apart from being called as a choir, we are also called as soloists. TV playwright Dennis Potter saw karaoke bars as a metaphor for life in our society, saying “Although you use your own voice, the words are written for you.” And I can see that that is even truer now than it was when he said it; the cult of celebrity has created a generation of wannabes; people who want to be like someone else, and to sing that person’s song in that person’s style. Just like in a karaoke bar. But the Kingdom of God is most certainly not like that! Each of us has our own song to sing, and our own style to sing it in.
Do you know what your song is? If you don’t, don’t worry because it can take a long time to find out. And there may be different songs for different times in your life. But if you accept that God has placed a song in you and will call it out, then you can start to find it. For many of us associated with WPI the calling is to business; the Wheaton Declaration talks about the sacred calling to business, and we know that God is using business to build His Kingdom. We have seen the call go out to more and more people, people that God has created and prepared for this time. People who will delight in singing their song in business.
There’s nothing like singing the song you were created to sing. At just 15, Conor McLean has already found that out. But it’s never too late. Remember that Moses was 80 when God called him into what he had been prepared for throughout his life! And maybe through our vocations we can help others into theirs; more apprenticeships will help more youngsters to get started in a job they will love. That’s part of the mission of business!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/vocation-vocation-vocation/
The death of al Qaeda?
Wednesday, 4th May, 2011
“Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” Philippians 3:17
“We have a visual on Geronimo”. It was the first confirmation that Osama bin Laden, was definitely in the compound in Pakistan. CIA director Leon Panetta confirmed his presence using the code word given to him by his enemies. But what do bin Laden and the 19th century Apache leader have in common?
The Americans apparently chose the code name because like Geronimo, bin Laden had evaded capture for many years. The two men also hid in caves and escaped from them. But they have more in common than that, and it’s something that can tell us how successful organisations operate.
In their 2006 book “The Starfish and the Spider”, Brafman and Beckstrom suggested that organisations structured like starfish can be more successful than traditional spider shaped ones. The analogy comes from biology; although starfish and spiders may look similar, in fact they are very different. Spiders have a head, containing a brain; starfish have a distributed neurological function. Cut the head off a spider and it dies; cut the arm off a starfish and you probably end up with two starfish. In organisational terms, spiders are those with a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, where the corporate vision resides in the “head”. Starfish organisations are decentralised and rely on the power of shared vision and peer relationships. They are communities where people are motivated. They are more flexible than their spider like counterparts, and can react more quickly to changes.
Although the book is subtitled “the unstoppable power of leaderless organisations”, starfish concerns are far from leaderless. But they do rely on a different leadership style. Leaders in a spider organisation use a command and control style. Starfish organisations foster enable and release management styles. Brafman and Beckstrom use the Apache tribe as a historical model of a decentralised organisation. The Apache had a Nan’tan, a spiritual and cultural leader. Geronimo is perhaps the best known of these. Nan’tans didn’t command; coercion was a foreign concept to the Apaches. But if Geronimo started fighting, then it was very likely that people would join him because experience led them to trust and respect his vision.
The book identifies a very successful, contemporary starfish organisation: al Qaeda. Does the death of bin Laden mean the death of al Qaeda? Almost certainly not. It’s not a spider that dies when its head is cut off! The vision has been distributed and taken up by many people in many countries. Starfish are much more resilient than spiders.
Of course, the Church has known about this for a long time. The growth of the house church movement in China is one example. And that great church planter St Paul knew a thing or two about distributing vision and enabling and releasing new Christians. Like Geronimo he expected to be imitated. But beyond that there are lessons for our businesses. Brafman and Beckstrom give examples of companies and ventures like Wikipedia, eBay and Skype, but also General Electric and Toyota, which are examples of hybrid companies, incorporating the best of spiders and starfish. What these companies have in common, apart from the starfish nature of significant parts of their operation, is their business success. In twenty first century business there are new rules to the game, and starfish have the upper hand.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-death-of-al-qaeda/
Only Fools and Horses….
Wednesday, 23rd March, 2011
Why do only fools and horses work? (an old saying…!)
I read a newspaper article the other day about Tesco’s new recruitment drive. They are advertising in Slovakia for jobs in the UK, including London. They were at pains to point out that this was not in order to get cheap labour; they pay all their staff the same wages in the UK regardless of where they come from and in fact it costs them a lot to bring people over from Eastern Europe. The new strategy is driven by the lack of British people applying for jobs. In some places they had had literally no responses to job ads. And this despite the fact that there are some 2.5 million people out of work in the UK. Does this have anything to do with the reputedly workshy Generation Y (also caricatured as needy and privileged)? Or perhaps a more general trend to workshyness across the generations? I don’t know, but no doubt it’s something we’ll hear more about as it’s on the national agenda.
As Christians, do we have a different attitude to work? Even Generation Y Christians? Well, that’s something that I think I do know a little about! The Bible makes clear we are all to work. Idleness is not a strategy we can in all conscience follow, although we may all have periods of enforced idleness through illness or other circumstances. The primary strategy that the Bible outlines for us to follow is working. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments “Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God.” (Exodus 20:9) Our concentration on the second part of this command (which is of course very important) has sometimes blinded us to the importance of the first part. Our 21st century blindness is not new of course. St Paul reminded his congregations of it, and he wrote that he himself always worked hard in order to give them all a good example. He cajoled them; “we urge you….to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). And he threatened them; “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12) But it seems that there were still those in the early church who preferred not to work! The early teaching of the Apostles written down in The Didache warns the fledgling Christian communities to watch out for people coming and settling with them who want to remain idle. New arrivals must follow a trade, they write, or else they are “Christ-peddlers” and to be avoided.
When Martin Luther rediscovered this focus on work, it turned into something know as the Protestant work ethic. You can find out more about that in our downloadable resource on A Theology of Work. But it’s not just Protestants; the Jewish people have always understood that because they are God’s people they are to work too, remembering the rhythm that was set in the commandments.
So why does God want us to work? Well, we were made to work. We are created in the image of a worker God, a God who creates, and we find fulfilment and purpose in work. Job satisfaction is a gift from a God who also has job satisfaction (see our downloadable resource An Introduction to the Theology of Work for more on this). And earning a living is part of taking responsibility for ourselves as adults. We compartmentalise things into sacred and secular….God doesn’t! Our work is important to him (and so to us) whatever it is. He is the boss we are working for, wherever we are working. So we had better be good workers!
The world may look on and say only fools and horses work…..but we know that Christians do too!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/only-fools-and-horses/
Rome wasn’t built in a day
Monday, 7th March, 2011
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Gen 1:31a)
I’ve been very much enjoying watching the Channel 4 TV series “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. It seems that other people have too, as it became quite popular during the 6 weeks over which the episodes were shown. If you didn’t see it, the basic idea is this. Take a small group of 21st century builders, including a foreman, and get them to build a Roman villa using as genuinely Roman tools and techniques as possible. The challenges of creating a large building without the use of modern power tools or cranes or even a wheelbarrow seemed impossible! Except, of course, that it was routinely done 2000 years ago. So our contemporary builders needed to change their mindsets…and work an awful lot harder!
To begin with they were pretty grumpy about the whole thing. And puzzled as to how it could be done. It took 6 months but by the end of the process things had changed. The builders could see the fruits of their labours and they’d done a good job. They’d developed and used new skills; the brickie had learned to use hand tools to craft stone pillars, the plasterer plastered the whole villa inside and out with Roman plaster, the labourer created wattle and daub walls. And they had an impressive Roman villa to show for their efforts. No wonder they were bursting with pride at what they’d achieved. Several felt they couldn’t go back to what they were doing before because it just didn’t measure up to what they’d just done.
This is job satisfaction! The opposite, which many workers have come to accept as the norm, is what Karl Marx described as the alienation of labour, where the worker becomes a cog in the machine and has no control over their work or their product. We were created to have job satisfaction. Why do I think that? Well it’s one of the things that the first chapter of Genesis tells us. God created people in his own image. We are made in the image of a God who works; we only have to get 5 words into the Bible before we find God working! And we are made in the image of a God who has job satisfaction; each day God looked at the work he had done and saw that it was good.
We were created to work and to enjoy good, creative work. That all got muddied in the third chapter of Genesis when alienation from God led to alienation of labour too. And now….well now we are fallen people working in a fallen system alongside other fallen people. Job satisfaction can be hard to find. But we still recognise it when we see it! And when we do finally find something that brings out our image-of-God creativeness, then we too can look at the results and see that they are good.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/rome-wasn%e2%80%99t-built-in-a-day/
Blog index
Tuesday, 1st February, 2011
Commerce not conflict
Hope in a cold climate
God is with us!
The narrow gate
The battle for our businesses
The sacred secular divide
The quaker example
Business matters!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/blog-index/
Commerce not conflict
Tuesday, 1st February, 2011
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? James 2:15-16
A friend drew my attention to an article in a 2010 edition of Time magazine. The piece, in the global business section, was about an entrepreneurial business incubator in Nazareth. Now that’s a town rich with resonance! This new enterprise is called New Generation Technologies (NGT), is eight years old and houses 18 early stage or start up companies , mostly in the area of biotechnology. Nothing too surprising there. But the radical difference in NGT is it is the first, and it is claimed only, joint Arab-Israeli incubator in the country. And while its main goal is to launch successful businesses, it has a subsidiary goal of helping to integrate Arabs into the Israeli economy. The article also refers to work by Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer, who has set up industrial parks in Israel and Turkey and who concludes that creating jobs and economic prosperity can do much to defuse conflicts.
Of course, it’s not easy. But it does seem to work on two fronts. Poverty and unemployment drive conflict. Working alongside someone from the other camp you get to know them as people and not just “the enemy”.
Reading the article reminded me of an excellent presentation we had in The Hub last month. Mats Tunehag is an expert on Business as Mission around the world. He explained the need for Christians to set up businesses in the poorest areas around the world. He pointed out that the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist worlds have about 80% of the world’s poorest people. Unemployment in these countries already ranges from 30% to 80%, and these nations have the fastest population growth as well. They are often areas of high risk for human trafficking and prostitution, because of the poverty. This is the world Jesus sends us to, and yet these are places where his name is rarely heard and often places where Christians are persecuted. Setting up profitable businesses can address all these issues; building real business with intentional mission provides a solution where we can be the good news we want to tell. It reduces poverty and unemployment, and provides non-Christians with a chance to work alongside and get to know Christians. And that can defuse the potential for conflict, as well as opening doors for the gospel.
What lessons can we learn for the UK? Well, we have areas of high unemployment, especially of young men of all ethnic and religious groups. They feel useless and are often hopeless, falling into the undignified world of the “benefit class”. There are sex workers in our country, some of whom have been trafficked from across the world, often tricked because they were simply looking for a job. Can we address that through Business as Mission? I think I would like to try. It works overseas, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work here. Real businesses, real jobs, an opportunity to be useful and to have hope for the future. That is really good news. And it’s hard to see what else we can do for those young men and women.
As the article in Time says, the “idea that business can move the ball when politics can’t is one that has quietly been gaining currency”.
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/commerce-not-conflict/
Hope in a cold climate
Thursday, 6th January, 2011
Happy New Year!
New years bring new starts. But they also bring new hope. Not the worldly hope of the resolutions we make and fail to keep. As someone once said, nothing raises more false hope than the first day of a diet! That hope quickly fades. The hope we can count on, even in tough times, is the unworldly hope of the Kingdom. As brought to us by its King.
Now it’s no accident that we celebrate the arrival of the King in the middle of winter. When it’s dark and cold our spirits tend to sink. At midwinter we need to be reminded of the hope of the warmth and light of God’s love for us.
Christmas is a bit of latecomer in the table of Christian festivals. Although Easter’s been celebrated since the beginning of the Church, Christmas only found its way into the calendar in a hesitant and rather disjointed way. Easter was always tied to Passover, so it’s easy to work out when it should happen. But Christmas. Well who knows what time of year Jesus was born. We all know he WAS born, but the first Christians didn’t have a special time to celebrate his birthday.
The first evidence of any celebration is from Egypt. About 200 AD, Clement of Alexandria says that certain Egyptian theologians “over curiously” assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ’s birth, placing it on the 20th May. In other parts of the new Christian world, Epiphany was celebrated on the 6th January. We still remember the arrival of the wise men on that date andin some places it became popular to remember the birth of Jesus at Epiphany too. Celebrating the birth of Jesus on the earlier date of 25th December seems to have started in the 4th century. Why 25th December? No-one is quite sure but it seems likely that the date was “borrowed” from the Roman solar cult which was popular at the time. Sol Invictus, was a sun god and there was a popular feast celebrating his birth, called Natalis Invicti. It was celebrated on 25 December. That was the date taken for Christmas.
Now I’m sure there were other midwinter festivals…it’s natural to want to celebrate something when the nights are at their darkest, to remind ourselves that spring will come, that there will be light and warmth again. But how wonderfully appropriate to use the feast of Natalis Invicti. The birth of the sun god Sol Invictus, whose name literally means the unconquered sun. Well just change the u to an o and we have the other kind of son; Jesus, the Son of God. And the idea of the unconquered Son takes us back to Easter. Jesus wasn’t conquered even by death. In fact he conquered it!
The message of Christmas is a message of hope; not just for a new year but for endless new years. And it’s a message of hope in a cold climate, of the light shining in the darkest hour. 2011 will bring challenges for most of us. It’s a tough time for businesses. The world’s in a mess; wars, famine, disaster. And then we have our own problems with health, money and relationships. But in all this we are not without hope. Because we belong to the unconquered and unconquerable Son we are a little bit unconquerable too. We just have to hang onto that truth! St Paul understood a thing or two about hope in a cold climate, and I would urge you to reread Romans, especially chapter 5. Paul writes “we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
My new year’s wish and prayer for all of us also comes from Paul, written in Romans 15; “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/hope-in-a-cold-climate/
God is with us! A Christmas message for the workplace…
Wednesday, 1st December, 2010
Have you heard of the fifth Gospel? I don’t mean those stories about the life of Jesus that didn’t make it into the New Testament. The book I’m talking about is one which is included in all versions of the Bible. But perhaps surprisingly you’ll find it in the Old Testament. And if you haven’t guessed by now it’s the book of the prophet Isaiah. Many years ago, at the end of the 4th century, St Jerome wrote that Isaiah “should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet because he describes all the mysteries of Christ and the Church so clearly that you would think he is composing a history of what has already happened rather than prophesying about what is to come.”
And although Isaiah is invaluable as the Easter story unfolds (his suffering servant passages are used so often they are sometimes confused with bits of the 4 New Testament gospels), it is at Christmas that Isaiah really seems to fill our church services. Where would we be without “A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord” (Isa 40:3) and the rest of that passage? Or “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isa 7:14). Or the Root of Jesse (Isa 11:10). Or the people walking in darkness seeing a bright light (Isa 9:1). Or unto us a child is born (Isa 9:6). Or….well I could go on and on.
Perhaps it’s just as well we have Isaiah to call on, because there isn’t that much about Christmas in the New Testament! Mark and John don’t include it at all in their gospels. Matthew tells us about the virgin birth, quoting Isaiah, and then tells us about the Magi, or wise men. Luke tells us about the census and trip to Bethlehem, and about the angels and shepherds. He also notes that there was no room at the inn and that the baby was placed in a manger. That is all. And Isaiah has even been used to develop these meagre details. There is no reference to a stable in Matthew or Luke, but Luke’s manger has been expanded to include the animals from Isaiah 1; “The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger”. And Matthew’s Magi have been rebranded as kings, a reference to Isaiah 60:3; “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”.
So why don’t Mark and John include a nativity story? Well, John goes one better and goes back beyond that day two thousand years ago to the beginning of time itself, when Jesus already existed. The story of Jesus, the story of God, has no beginning and no ending. But at Christmas we remember that far from staying aloof and leaving us to work things out as best we can down here on earth, God came and joined us as a fully human, fully God Jesus. He came to rescue us. John might not include the stable or the shepherds or the wise men, but he tells us the truly good news of Christmas.
“…the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only son, full of grace and truth”.
Not only did the Word live among us, He worked among us too. He even ran a business among us! He is Immanuel for the workplace and business.
And in his version of the good news Isaiah writes about the day when the Kingdom comes, the day of the new heaven and earth, when work will be redeemed, will be what it was created to be, what it is when we work alongside Immanuel; “my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labour in vain” (Isa 65:22-23).
As we live in the now and the not yet, while we are of the Kingdom but in the world, we can still experience work in its Kingdom setting. Here and now God is with us in everything we do. Happy Christmas!
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/god-is-with-us-a-christmas-message/
The Narrow Gate
Monday, 6th September, 2010
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:13,14
After our usual prayer meeting last Friday, discussion turned to Kingdom business. As it often does! By Kingdom business I mean businesses which are run to work towards building the Kingdom, taking direction from the King. One of the group referred to the Bible reading given above. Sometimes in order to find the narrow gate we have to take a hard road.
But what is the narrow gate for Christian businesses? How do we make the right choices and decisions?
The Wheaton Declaration on Business as Integral Calling has some suggestions;
“In business, practicing the values of the Kingdom of God should be characterized by operational virtues, including:
- Passion – a zeal for mission that expresses other-centered concern.
- Humility – a commitment to serve others with respect.
- Faith – a willingness to take bold risks.
- Wisdom – the application of truth to complex circumstances.
- Integrity – the alignment between our words, deeds and values.
- Hope – the joy of expectation, especially in the midst of hardship, that comes from a conviction that God’s Kingdom is already present and will be fulfilled in eternity.”
Join the debate and let us know if you agree, or if you have other ideas for finding the narrow gate.
Bridget Adams
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-narrow-gate/
Jim Thwaites- An Intern’s View…
Friday, 9th July, 2010
On monday 14th of June, Jim Twaites (author of Renegotiating the Chuch Contract) took a whole day of lectures plus an evening lecture at the Watford School of Leadership.
In these lectures, Jim convered a number of theological areas such as the placement of the heavens, the church and the changing of mindsets. His main topic during the day was on the judaic placing of heavens and how it may be different to what we’ve thought. For me, as a spacial person who has often asked the question of “where IS heaven” this was a brilliant insight, Jim went through scripture surrounding details and descriptions and continued to build a big picture of the heavns and where earth is within that. I won’t try and describe this whole part as, I am sure you’ll agree, it’s a hard one to put in words!
With this placing of the heavens, he then proceeded to show us where the body of christ was in this big picture. One great thing was that from this he started taking apart many Platonic theories and ideas that have entangled themselves into the church today. He helped us to see how the church has been used as a mediator whereas actually, only jesus is the mediator for us. For myself and many others this was so helpful! It changes how you look on everyday things, on how you view work and church and life! Leaving the lecture hall you also left challenged and inspired with a new mindset on heaven, eternity and the church!
I would truly recommend having a read of his book. I know that after 5 hours of his lectures there’s still so much more to be learnt from him!
On a last note, this is my last day of interning with The Hub. It has been a great year and I have learnt so much from all the amazing people who work here and for Workplace Inspired. I pray all blessings on them as they head into the summer!
Thanks for reading,
Sophia
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/jim-thwaites-an-interns-view/
The Battle for our Businesses
Friday, 25th June, 2010
“We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him” 1 John 5:18
I’ve been reading a good book. Not THE good book, but one that relates closely to it. “An Exorcist Tells His Story” is the memoir of the Chief Exorcist of Rome, Catholic priest Gabriele Amorth. Fr Amorth tells it how it is in a matter of fact way. In the introduction he tells us that he “will not attempt to demonstrate truths that are thoroughly discussed in other publications, such as the existence of demons, the reality of demonic possession, and the power to expel demons, which Christ gave to those who believe in the Gospel message. These are all revealed truths…” Instead this now elderly man gives us the benefit of his practical experience from a quarter of century working as an exorcist, focussing on “practical aspects that may be useful to exorcists and to anyone who wishes to learn about the subject”.
It all makes very interesting reading. But one thing in particular caught my attention. From his years of practical experience he concludes “demons tend to attack man in five areas (which) are the following: health, business, affections, enjoyment of life and desire for death.” All of these are interesting, but for us the second is especially attention grabbing. Demons, including the devil himself, are interested in our businesses and our ability to earn money. Fr Amorth refers to successful industrialists whose businesses suddenly go to rack and ruin, and previously successful business leaders who start making bad decisions and end up in debt. Why are the demons interested in ruining our businesses? I think it’s because God is interested in them too and the work of the demon is to come between people and God. The areas of attack culminate in the ultimate despair, the desire for death, which is the final rejection of the hope that God holds out to us, the final cutting off from the life giving God.
Are we aware of this kind of attack? I suspect some of us will know that we have had this unwanted attention in our workplaces and businesses. How do we deal with it? Exorcism might sound like a drastic step for some, but maybe we should think along those lines. After all, exorcism is a deliberate excluding of demons by a deliberate infilling of God. And we can do that in our businesses; if we and our businesses are full of God then there is no room for the demons. Filling our businesses with God requires a lot of prayer and the intention of handing it all over to Him. We can’t keep part of it back for ourselves; that act of self opens the door to the enemy. Our Kingdom businesses here in Watford operate on the assumption that Jesus is the CEO; we aim to operate through finding His strategy, His wisdom and His Kingdom plan.
We are none of us perfect, things can slip, but we must be alert, and stay close to God if we want to win the battle for our businesses. The final word to Fr Amorth, who writes that it is “clear that the believer must be faithful to God and must fear sin. This is the basis of our strength, as St John tells us ‘We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him’ (1 Jn 5:18). If sometimes our weakness leads us to fall, we must immediately pick ourselves up with that great gift of God’s mercy: repentance and confession.”
Bridget Adams
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-battle-for-our-businesses/
Sacred Secular Divide?
Wednesday, 16th June, 2010
“for the world is mine, and all that is in it” Psalm 50:12
I remember some years ago seeing a church drama. At the end of the sketch the cast walked to the back of the church, as if leaving at the end of the service. They turned at the door and all waved; “goodbye God, see you again next week”. It was funny because it felt true for so many of us. We came on Sunday to meet with God, and then left Him there in church while we went back out into the world.
Why do we think that? Why do we act as if God is interested in what happens in church but not in what happens in His world? It has become so much a mindset among God’s people that it even has a name; the sacred secular divide. We assume that God is interested in what we define as sacred, but not in what we define as secular. Over the years many ideas and trends have fed this divide. There’s St Augustine’s neo-Platonism, the Greek thinking that places the spiritual over the material, which has fed into our theology. There’s the Enlightenment, one result of which was the taking of the public sphere for science so that God was pushed to the sidelines. And then there’s the present day outworking of that, where secular humanism has to all intents and purposes become the official religion of our country. Our society tells us that Christianity is allowed within the confines of church buildings but that we have to live by different rules out in the world.
These have all fed the sacred secular divide. But I believe its source lies somewhere else. You see, it’s been around for a long time. Hundreds of years before Plato, God and his people had a dialogue through the prophet Isaiah. It’s documented in Isaiah 58. The people ask God to support them;
“’Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.”
And God goes on to tell the people that it’s not “religious activity” He expects from them but a whole life which lives out His principles. The people of Israel and Judah had generated their own sacred secular divide! It seems that fallen human beings find it easier to compartmentalise things. Even when we come to God we put what we are prepared to offer to Him in a compartment; we’re not going to let Him have the whole lot! We want to stay in control of our lives, and to do that it’s more comfortable to set limits. And like the people that Isaiah was talking to, we can do this by “doing religion” on one day of the week and living how we choose to the rest of the time. He can have the sacred but we’ll keep control of the secular, and we’ll define which is which.
But the Bible makes clear that God does not compartmentalise his creation. He is interested in everything, His presence fills everywhere. He is just as present in our workplaces and businesses as He is in our church buildings. And He is just as interested in what happens there. Not just Isaiah, but all the prophets spoke about lifestyle and social justice, including business practice. For example in Amos 8;
Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying,
”When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?”—
skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done”.
God is interested in our businesses; are we interested in having Him there? Have we handed them all over to Him, or are we holding something back for ourselves? We have to brave the discomfort of an undivided universe if we truly want to be God’s people. But when we do we have the immense privilege and pleasure of working alongside Him in His creation.
Bridget Adams
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/sacred-secular-divide/
The Quaker Example
Thursday, 6th May, 2010
“True godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it…” William Penn, No Cross No Crown, 1682
When we think of Christians in business in the UK, the Quakers spring readily to mind. Or at least they should do! William Penn, quoted above and himself a businessman, was a friend and colleague of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, and wrote down much of the original theology of the new sect. He went on to become the founder and “absolute proprietor” of the Province of Pennsylvania, where he planned the city of Philadelphia, or brotherly love. Fox’s teachings as explained by Penn have motivated many Quakers to try to make the world a better place through business. This was the Business as Mission of the 17th to 20th centuries!
And these were big businesses with a big impact. The names of Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Bryant and May, Clark, Wedgwood, Barclay and Lloyd are still household names in the 21st century. But there are also forgotten names. Abraham Darby was an innovative genius in the early 18th century, whose metal working companies were instrumental in starting the Industrial Revolution. A century later the Pease family started and ran the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, originally set up to transport coal from their mines but later introducing the world’s first passenger train. Quaker enterprises formed the basis of British Steel (now Corus) and British Rail, as well as Unilever and ICI.
The Quaker ethics of honesty, hard work and responsibility for others produced businesses that thrived, leaving a legacy and positive example for business ethics through the centuries since. As Joseph Rowntree’s biographer notes; “His father could see nothing incongruous in mentioning his stocks of sugar and the Holy Spirit in the same paragraph of a letter, and it would never have occurred to Joseph that there might be a code of ethics applicable only to commerce”.
Rowntree provides a good example of Quaker social action in a business context. As his company grew, so he consistently implemented social provision and care that preceded what the State would legislate for years later. In 1891 he engaged his first welfare worker, and by 1904 the company had seven welfare workers, almost as many as it had department heads. Rowntree employed his first company doctor and dentist in 1904, offering services free of charge to employees, and a company pension scheme was established in 1906. Paid holiday was introduced in 1918. The company had an extensive programme of social activities and a company newsletter, as well as classes and a library. Rowntree made efforts to make the workplace pleasant and interesting, hoping that men and women could be encouraged “to develop all that is best and worthy in themselves”. Like the Cadbury brothers, Rowntree embarked on a social housing programme to provide accommodation for his employees and for others in need.
Quakers were a persecuted minority, never more than 1% of the population, and not allowed to hold public office until the 19th century. But none the less they used business to transform and shape the UK. They were innovative risk takers in business, and Quaker run businesses networked and worked together, with ideas as well as finance running round the network. Joseph Rowntree was a director of the Midlands and York Railway. The Lloyds and Frys were also actively involved in building railways. Quaker banks and Quaker investors supported Quaker entrepreneurs, but they also worked with them. Demonstrating integrity and trustworthiness to those who were suspicious of Quakers, they were also transparent with each other, opening their books to fellow Quakers.
I find the story of Quaker businesses very encouraging. When it comes to 21st century Christian entrepreneurial businesses we needn’t worry about how few we are, just how well we do what God has entrusted us to do and how well we work with each other. We can have an impact!
Bridget Adams
http://workplaceinspired.com/blog/the-quaker-example/
Business Matters!
Wednesday, 31st March, 2010
What is the role of business in God’s purposes? If you thought it didn’t have one then think again! Business people have always been involved in God’s mission; in the New Testament we are introduced to Paul, Lydia, Dorcas, Priscilla and Aquilla amongst many others. And since then Christian business people have played key parts in spreading the gospel. These days, Business as Mission (BAM) is being used to bring about transformation across the world. Let me explain why business is so well placed to do this today.
Broadly, and perhaps crudely, speaking, in the pre-modern period the Church shaped society, in the modern period the nation state shaped it and in the contemporary, or post-modern, world society is shaped by businesses. And they shape it across the whole world, operating across national borders in globalized markets. By the end of the last century, neo-liberalism, where market forces are given precedence over all other considerations, had created a society where economics had replaced science, which the century before had replaced theology, as the main way in which society attempts to explain the world. From Church to nation to business; from theology to science to economics. Our world has changed and the Church can no longer shape the world around it directly. But people haven’t changed, their need for God hasn’t changed and God’s plan hasn’t changed.
If it is business that shapes the world, then why can’t the Church work in and through business to shape it for good and for God? Shaping it for good brings greater justice and relief from poverty for the world’s poor, and the dignity of useful labour for all those who want it. Shaping it for God brings “life in its fullness”, a life reconnected with the One who made us and loves us. And all of that is good news.
In October 2009 I joined 29 other people at Wheaton College, near Chicago. Theologians, business leaders, financiers and church leaders from across the world took part in a global consultation on Business as Integral Calling, discussing these opportunities. During that week we generated what has now become a Wheaton Declaration. This has just been published on
http://www.businessaic.com/Home.html
It makes interesting reading and I urge you to take a look. It refers to the “sacred calling of a life in business” and asks the Church to consider how it might encourage and support Christian business people to live out this calling. And it concludes; “It is our deep conviction that businesses that function in alignment with the core values of the Kingdom of God are playing and increasingly should play an important role in holistic transformation of individuals, communities and societies.”
If you are in business then maybe it’s your integral calling. Why not ask God if it is?
Bridget Adams