Christian Business Review: Inaugural Issue - July 2012

CHRI STI AN BUSI NESSREVI EW AJ OURNALBY THECENTER FOR CHRI STI ANI TY I N BUSI NESSAT HOUSTON BAPTI ST UNI VERSI TY

A SPECI AL I NAUGURALI SSUE JULY2012 L i f eBal anc eandGod’ sPr i or i t i es FREDCAL DWEL L

WhyBus i nes sMat t er st oGodI nt heBegi nni ng J EFFVANDUZER

L i f eBal anc ei nt heVor t exofChange WAL L ACEHENL EY

T r ans f er r abl eSki l l sf r om Bus i nes st oChur c h DRUST EVENSON

Res i l i enc e ERNESTL I ANG

WORK/LI FE

BALANCE

Issue 1 July 2012 A publication of the Center for Christianity in Business School of Business, Houston Baptist University PUBLISHERS Robert Sloan Mohan Kuruvilla

IN THIS INAUGURAL ISSUE 2

Letter from the Editors

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Living Cases

One person’s spiritual journey of discovery about purpose in life

CO-EDITORS

Fred Caldwell

Ernest Liang Leslie Haugen

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CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

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Note to Readers:

Houston Baptist University (HBU), or HBU School of Business.

Why Business Matters to God – In the Beginning Jeff Van Duzer

Justin Lacey

Christian Business Review,

Book Excerpt

Does business have an intrinsic as well as instrumental purpose in God’s kingdom?

Wes Gant

The views expressed in articles are the authors’ and not necessarily those of the

Work Life Balance – How Shall a Christian Professional then Live?

Mark Ammerman, Donna Draudt, Linda Headley, Bill Mearse, Gary Thomas, Brad Hays (moderator)

Wallace Henley

Alan W. Presley

Feature Article

Excerpts from a special panel discussion

Richard Martinez

SUPPORT & DESIGN

Life Balance and God’s Priorities

Life Balance in the Vortex of Change Knowing who we are as God’s image-bearers is essential to keeping life balance in an age of dizzying changes

Wallace Henley

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Transferrable Skills from Business to Church Professional skills offer opportunities for growth in the Christ-follower and his(her) church

Dru Stevenson

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Resilience Faith and biblical virtues anchor community and organizational stability needed to weather life’s unexpected turbulences

Ernest Liang

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Guidelines for contributors

The Christian Business Review, Issue 1. Copyright 2012 Houston Baptist University. All rights reserved by original authors except as noted. Submissions to this journal are welcome. Email us at cbr@hbu.edu. To learn about the Center for Christianity in Business, visit www.hbu.edu/ccb.

July 2012 Christian Business Review

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FROM THE EDITORS

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elcome to the inaugural issue of the Christian Business Review (CBR), a publication of the Center for Christianity in Business (CCB) at Houston Baptist University‟s School of Business. Although the CCB is a young ministry (founded in 2009), it has a clear vision and big aspirations. Along with conferences and luncheon seminars, it tirelessly seeks opportunities to challenge, equip, and edify present and future business leaders, as genuine Christ followers, to integrate biblical values into their professional lives.

The CBR is an ambitious venture to promote this mission. The journal is concerned with both academic and business communities and views them as complementary to building a distinctively Christian worldview for business. Accordingly, each issue of the CBR will, when possible, take up a timely and relevant issue of special practical interest to the Christian business professional. Please see our website, www.hbu.edu/ccb, for more information.

In this inaugural issue, we examine the important if controversial topic of work-life balance. In the secular academic literature, there is already a very well developed body of research, with early inquiries making their most important contributions by merely focusing on imbalance as a problem. It wasn‟t until it became costly from both individual and organizational perspectives that a concerted, often corporate-sponsored, effort to understand the issue was undertaken. Prescriptive initiatives to help rebalance the employee‟s workload, acknowledging needs for personal and family investments, included strategies ranging from organizational policy patches, to redesigned jobs, sabbaticals, and creative and quasi-clandestine negotiations between supervisor and subordinates.1 Both academically and in practice this remains a vitally important topic because of the premium on intellectual capital relative to physical capital, and the well-established maxim that a happy employee is a productive employee (a topic, perhaps, for another issue!).

But in the intellectual sphere touching the world of the Christian professional, the issue of work-life balance is relatively barren. Seen in the light of eternity, this discussion in fact is far more critical as it has the potential to reshape the way we think about the role of work as God intends it. It has the potential to impact countless others as we interact with them in the workplace, at church, in our community, and at home. It is with this understanding that we humbly invite our readers to enjoy, and critically review the messages of the articles that follow, each one an attempt to flesh out what it is to be an authentic Christian living and working in a secular, and increasingly secularized, world.

Our inaugural issue begins with a personal testimony from Fred Caldwell, an entrepreneur in the commercial real estate industry, in which he draws the key insight that life balance is fundamentally about proper priorities as defined by God Himself. Fred‟s conclusion is echoed by several of the business leaders who participated in a Work Life Balance panel convened by the Center in the Fall of 2011. Their immensely helpful insights and testimonies are summarized in an anchor article in this first issue entitled “Work Life Balance: How Shall the Christian Professional then Live?” We trust that you will find these conversations greatly edifying in your spiritual journey.

In the main articles section, we begin with an excerpt from Jeff Van Duzer‟s recent book, Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to be Fixed)(InterVarsity, 2010).

In this beginning chapter of his work, Van Duzer develops an argument for business as a noble calling with roots extending all the way back to God‟s creation mandate. His sound argument and wise synopsis aptly provide a solid grounding for the purposes of this new July 2012 Christian Business Review 2

FROM THE EDITORS journal and indeed, of the CCB. In a timely article alerting believers to the relentless forces of rapid changes in 21st century living, Wallace Henley advances the thesis that the modern day challenges to work-life balance can be met by a return to “first principles” – a recognition of our nature as God‟s image-bearers and time as His gift and means of developing that image.

Dru Stevenson turns the conventional wisdom upside down in his article on transferrable skills, in which he argues that professional skills possessed by believers constitute a treasure trove for church enterprises – a fact that seems to have been lost on church leaders but not by Jesus Christ our Lord. His analysis offers a new dimension to our understanding of balances in the life of a Christian professional: secular skills and spiritual growth can indeed go hand in hand. Finally, Ernest Liang borrows the concept of resilience, which has gained currency in the social sciences in recent years, to demonstrate how and why the biblical values Christ followers are imbued with are inherently important to individual and enterprise stability in times of severe turbulences.

We close with an extended quote from William MacDonald, who eloquently captures what is meant by the Lord‟s appearing (2 Timothy 4:8) and how that relates to our fulltime occupations: “If you knew Christ were coming in a week, how would you spend the intervening days? Does it mean you would give up your job, go to a mountaintop and spend all day reading the Bible and praying? Does it mean you would go into „fulltime Christian work,‟ preaching and teaching day and night?

If we are really walking with the Lord today and living in the center of His will, it would mean carrying on as usual. If however, we are living for self, then it would require some revolutionary changes.

It is not enough to have kind thoughts about the Savior‟s return. The crown of righteousness is reserved for those who love it enough to let the truth mold their lives. It is not enough to hold the truth about His coming; the truth must hold us.”

(William MacDonald, One Day at a Time, Gospel Folio Press (2007): 277)

Our prayer is that the content of this journal would bring glory to God as it serves to strengthen, edify, encourage and make you wise for the work to which you have been called.

Ernest P. Liang, Ph.D Leslie K. Haugen, Ph.D. Co-Editors 1

See for example, MacDermid, S.M., Lee, M.D., & Buck, M.L, “Alternative Work Arrangements among Professionals and Managers: Rethinking Career Development and Success,” Journal of Management Development 20(4) (2001): 305-317; Lee, M.D., Lirio, P., Karakas, F., MacDermid, S.M., Buck, M.L. and Kossek, E.E., “Exploring Career and Personal Outcomes and the Meaning of Career Success among Part-Time Professionals in Organizations,” in Research Companion to Work Hours and Work Addiction, ed.

R.J. Burke (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2006), 284-309; and Lirio, P., Lee, M.D., Williams, M.L., Haugen, L.K., and Kossek, E.E., “The Inclusion Challenge with Reduced-Load Professionals: The Role of the Manager,” Human Resource Management, 47(3) (2008): 443-461.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 3

God’s Priorities and Life Balance

CBR Living Cases

Living Cases Personal spiritual journeys of men and women in business

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hat is my purpose in life?

This is a question pondered by perhaps every man. Why am I on earth and what am I here to accomplish? How do I balance my life so that I achieve the most

important goals? In answering these questions, I have found that once we discover our true purpose, the ability to manage day-to-day life is much easier.

When I was four years old, my father was called to enter full-time ministry, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. That calling took the family to Del Rio, Texas where we lived July 2012 Christian Business Review

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God’s Priorities and Life Balance until I graduated from high school. While in high school, I participated in many sports and at the end of high school, had some desire to continue playing my favorite sport, football. Thanks to a family friend, I was invited by the coaches at Texas A&M University to join their freshman class of football players as a walk-on.

I will always remember my first day on the TAMU campus. I made a comment to my roommate, John, that I wanted to work very hard during the two-a-day practices so I could make the first away game trip to Kansas. He looked me straight in the eye and told me that few if any walk-on players ever made the travel team.

He went on to explain Fred Caldwell that after several years is founder and as a walk-on, he had CEO of not even had the opCaldwell portunity to suit up for Cos., a Houa game on Kyle Field. ston-based John’s comment woke commercial something deep inside and residential me and a determinareal estate tion developed to development prove that I could and investmake the team. ment firm.

But John was right The company’s vision, as about the initial trip. stated on its The walk-on journey website, is “to was challenging at honor God by best. The walk-on stewarding players wore green resources, jerseys while the cultivating scholarship athletes relationships wore maroon jerseys. and creating The walk-on players extraordinary had their names taped communities on their helmets, while that enrich the scholarship athlives.” letes needed no names

CBR Living Cases on their helmets as the coaches already knew their names. The green jersey for me became a measurement of self-worth and fed a feeling that I would never be of value unless I could become a scholarship player.

My desire to succeed had never been so intense at any prior point in my life. I put every ounce of effort into becoming an athlete that was worthy of a maroon jersey. I grew to have a strong hatred for the green jersey and the walk-on title. I became very determined to fight my way out of the walk-on status.

My football background is a precursor to my discovering the purpose for my life apart from a game and from how others might decide to “clothe” me with their uniforms. Unfortunately, upon entering college my relationship with God was not secure and my identity was rooted not in His purpose for my life but in my ability to perform and achieve.

During the first year of my college experience, three primary focuses evolved for me to the exclusion of all others – weights, school and football. I did these things not out of any real joy but out of a deep need to prove to myself that I was worth more than being a walk-on in a green jersey with my name taped to a helmet. My focus left little room for anything or anyone else. Accordingly, I essentially lived in a self-created cocoon of work.

Throughout the first year of college, I masked the pain of my identity being tied to a green jersey by becoming a very intense young man. I was developing the attitude of a fighter and acquiring the toughness necessary to win battles on the practice field. I determined that the only way to get out of the green jersey was to defeat all scholarship athletes who stood in my way. Thus, my own teammates July 2012 Christian Business Review

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God’s Priorities and Life Balance became enemies by my narrow definition of purpose.

In the second year, I was given the opportunity to play special teams. I played on Kyle Field, suited up in a game jersey and was even listed in the program.

These things were a huge step forward in my pursuit of the maroon jersey. I was fulfilled in some ways by these small steps. In the same year during Spring practice, the head coach, Tom Wilson, stopped practice one day and told me to take off the green jersey and put on a maroon jersey. The other players clapped and showed great enthusiasm in what would be one of the more memorable events in my football experience. I so enjoyed the moment but the desire to press forward and achieve did not subside.

After being given a scholarship that Spring, I made it my goal to become a starter on the team and once again my focus increased, which led in turn to longer workouts in the weight room and on the field. I started my first game as a junior and became a two-year starter in my fourth and fifth years. That fifth year as I carried a full load of graduate classes while competing each day on the football field was perhaps one of the most trying times in my life.

Our new coach put the team through grueling practice schedules in the Spring and Fall. In every practice, we had numerous fights and the game lost much of its interest for me. During a game with TCU, my left knee was planted to the turf and my body pushed in the opposite direction; most of the ligaments in my knee were torn. As I lay injured on Kyle Field, a strange relief flooded over me as I realized I would never play football again.

The battle of five years was over, and with the end of that battle came great relief. The hill I had been climbing sud-

CBR Living Cases denly vanished and I felt some temporary relief from the pain inside me.

I graduated with my Masters in Business Finance in 1983, married my high school girlfriend, Susan, who had stuck with me throughout college and moved to Houston. Unlike my classmates who mostly went to work for accounting and banking firms, I elected to go to work for my father-in-law’s home building business. I became a construction superintendent and once again felt I was wearing a green jersey as my peers headed off in suits to downtown Houston or Dallas. I was on construction sites in boots and jeans, at that time feeling like I was wasting time and my education; little did I know then that God was preparing me for a career in the development of residential communities. After two years and the market collapse in Houston, I changed jobs and went to work for a commercial developer and investor.

Simply outworking the competition led to personal achievement but it did not lead to any true satisfaction. In the mid 1980s, the growing insight that I was not destined on earth to have the emptiness left by hard work and success at sports or business led me to make a decision to turn to God. Because of my identity being tied to a sport in college and in the first few years of my business career, I had made some poor decisions that had damaged many relationships. Out of these decisions came emptiness, regret and the realization that there was something better.

Susan and I began attending a church in northwest Houston and the pastor befriended me. His counsel coupled with other things I was reading caused me one day in the midst of a “green jersey” day to simply tell God that I would submit to Him and follow Jesus. From that point forward, God began a healing process July 2012 Christian Business Review

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God’s Priorities and Life Balance that has been ongoing now for over 25 years.

In 1990, I took a leap of faith and started a real estate company, with the goal of one day being in the development and investment real estate business. For the first five to six years of starting the business, I was seldom home as I worked almost every day. My focus was once again on being “successful.” However, this time around, God was in the equation and although my work ethic was pointedly focused on the business, I also began to have a growing hunger to better know God. The guilt I felt for not being home with my family grew stronger over time and drove me to consider the whole issue of balance and priority. I was in need of healing and God was the solution.

The healing that had to occur started with an understanding of my purpose in life. My purpose had always been defined by achieving goals. My life was built on a platform of goals, each goal leading to the next bigger goal; and when a person

CBR Living Cases does not truly know God, goals can become one’s purpose, as was my experience. The only time I seemed to be satisfied was when I was distracted enough by work to not address the emptiness that existed inside.

In 1999, my oldest daughter and I attended a ministry focused on parent-teen relationships known as JH Ranch. This experience was a critical turning point in my relationship with God, my family and my career.

I learned many important concepts, including a better understanding of the “Law of Diminishing Returns”: the more I worked and consumed, the less I was fulfilled. Diminishing returns is an economic principle that, in essence, implies that we are fulfilled less and less by increasing quantities.

As an example, the first scoop of Bluebell vanilla ice cream on a hot summer afternoon is outstanding. The second scoop is very good but not as good as the first, and if you were to eat

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God’s Priorities and Life Balance four or five scoops, by the last scoop the desire for ice cream would be highly diminished (and you would likely be feeling a bit ill).

Such was my life of moving from one goal to the next, hoping that the next, bigger goal would satisfy. But the return on each goal that is achieved loses most of its value once it is achieved, thus the need to move on to successively larger goals.

The only case for which the Law of Diminishing Returns does not apply is the pursuit of God and His word. In this case, and this case only, the more we consume of Him who created us and His word, the more we desire and thirst for His presence in our lives.

In understanding the spiritual application of the Law of Diminishing Returns, I began to understand that the legacy I leave in this world will largely be through my family and other meaningful relationships rather than through my business.

I also began to better understand Jesus’ command to love God and people. By so doing, we fulfill all the law and move beyond mere religion.

Over the years as I have made the Bible my friend and source of knowledge of God’s purpose, I find the meaning of each day to be much clearer. Through study, the men and women depicted in the Bible as examples of faith have become models for my life. Common to all of them is a calling that supersedes the things of this world and a passion to first and foremost glorify God. Looking at Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, the first disciples, Peter, Paul and others, little is said of the work required for sustenance, yet all worked in some manner.

The remarkable part of their lives was their pursuit of God and His calling, not the pursuit of things of temporal value.

CBR Living Cases They demonstrated that the work of this world serves as a platform for true purpose to be developed. Jesus made it perfectly clear that His time on earth was invested in glorifying the Father. As the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus’ actions make it clear that my actions, also, should bring glory to God. Paul and Peter, especially, give me understanding that God desires our work to be our platform rather than our purpose.

Both disciples make it clear to me that a balanced life is not the goal. With much being written and discussed about living a balanced life, it seems apparent to me that Jesus and His disciples did not make “balance” the key, at least not in the way we define the term.

We tend to use it in the sense of a scale, with equal amounts of weight on each side of the scale. The weight we measure is time, and a well-rounded life

God's

Priorities

"The key to a fulfilling life is not a desire to live in balance, but a desire to live by God’s priorities" July 2012 Christian Business Review

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God’s Priorities and Life Balance balances time equally across the most important things in life. For many, the allocation of time is spread between family, work, recreation and spiritual matters.

If, for example, we are spending too much time at work and not enough time with the family, then we feel guilty and determine to cut back time at work. The problem, as I see it, is that our desire to balance time evenly across the multiple facets of our life is not necessarily in keeping with biblical principles, nor is this balancing act demonstrated by the great men and women of faith.

The principle that removes the guilt comes from the sixth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus states plainly that the things of this world will never satisfy, and that worry and hoarding of material possessions will lead to problems.

He makes it clear that we cannot serve two masters, much less three or four, as we will learn to hate the one and love the other. The remedy is rather to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:33-34 (NIV)).

Thus, the key to life on this earth as God intended is priority. We are to put

CBR Living Cases God’s kingdom and His call first in our lives and then, in an amazing promise, Jesus says we will receive the blessing of life on earth as He intended.

The early disciples and all the great men and woman of faith in Scripture did not seek balance but sought God. They did not seek fulfillment by making allocations of time to family, faith and physical needs but by making God their priority and following Him. I believe that the key to a fulfilling life is not a desire to live in balance [as the world defines it] but a desire to live by priority – God’s priorities.

Living a life ordered by the Lord’s priorities is challenging, to say the least.

The world dictates that balance is to be pursued and that we can diminish the guilt we feel from unbalanced lives by simply reallocating time to those areas we have been neglecting.

The real solution, I believe, lies in making Christ the priority each day. As He promises, by focusing on the eternal priorities of God, our temporal priorities will become aligned with the right priorities. Seek God first and He will direct your paths and your priorities and give you full joy and contentment – the kind of balance that God intends. He will clothe you in the perfect jersey, one designed especially for you. 

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Work Life Balance

CBR Feature Article How Shall a Christian Professional then Live? *Excerpts from discussions of leadership panel

T H E P A N E L

Mark Ammerman

Ammerman is Managing Director of Scotiabank’s Houston-based energy banking operation, Head of U.S. Energy, and co-chair of the global banking committee of Scotia Capital.

During his 25-year career with the bank, he

*To offer business professionals a first person reflection on the issue of work life balance by Christian business leaders, the Center for Christianity in Business at Houston Baptist University convened a panel discussion on Work Life Balance on September 30, 2011. Here are the highlights.

has built the energy practice through acquisitions and more recently its expansion into Latin America and Europe.

Donna Draudt

Draudt is Regional President of Woodforest National Bank, overseeing Houston area lending operations and the Treasury management sales team. She has over 32 years of commercial banking experience and specializes in lending to “non-profit organizations.” especially churches.

Brad Hays (Moderator)

Hays is an experienced Executive Coach and the Houston area chair of Convene, a national leadership training operation for Christian CEOs and business owners. He has over 35 years of experience with Honeywell and Pennzoil as well as CEO of two technology start-ups.

Headley is a shareholder and former managing shareholder in the Houston office of Littler Mendelson, the nation’s largest specialized labor and employment law firm. A frequent speaker on employment law issues, she has been named a Best Lawyer in America by Employment Law Management from 2001-2012.

Gary Thomas Bill Mearse

Linda Headley

Sector, a $5+ billion business involving the oil and gas, chemical, utilities, metal, mining and paper industries. He is responsible for the growth and profitability of the Resources global business and participates on several Accenture management committees.

if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?, Pure Pleasure, Sacred Pathways, and the Gold Medallion award winner Authentic Faith.

He serves on the teaching team of Second Baptist Church, Houston, and is an adjunct faculty member at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.

His books and ministry focus on spiritual formation: how we can integrate Scripture, church history, and time-tested Christian classics into our modern experience of faith.

Thomas is an internationally Mearse is Manacclaimed aging Director of speaker and auAccenture’s thor of over a Houston office dozen books, and COO of the including Sacred firm’s Resources Marriage: What July 2012 Christian Business Review 10

Work Life Balance Panel Hays: Let’s begin by having the topic framed. How should we understand the whole issue of work-life balance?

Thomas: I want to give my life to a place that cares if I am gone, where I am not replaced with just another number but where it matters if I go. When I look at the Bible, I see it as being so honest about the human condition. I used to think Genesis 5 was one of the most boring chapters in the Bible but now I believe it may be one of the more profound. It has a huge start – the world was being created.

God was sprinkling mountains, creating time, forming the first man and woman.

Then there was the drama of Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed, the great temptation, the Fall and the banishment, and then a homicide!

But then you come to Chapter 5. It is nothing but a long list of genealogies: Seth lived to be 105, had his first kid, then lived another 807 years and died at 912; then Enosh and Kenan came, etc. It is just a long, dull list. Yet I think this is a shockingly honest picture of the human condition. We have kids. We live a certain amount of time. We die and get out of the way.

We don’t know anything about these biblical characters. All we know is they lived, had kids, these were the kids’ names, and they died. When I realize that I couldn’t name my great-great grandfather or great-great grandmother, just a few generations removed, I realize how silly to think that my great-great grandchildren could name me. In one sense, I have to embrace my historical insignificance so as to live a life of eternal significance and relational purpose because my kids do know who I am. So then if the Bible presents that reality, and history presents that reality, how does it affect our view of work today?

CBR Articles I believe we find our significance not in trying to become significant in our day and age but by becoming significant to the family that we have been called to live with and to raise, and as far as our service to the Lord. If we look at our work as an offering to God - providing jobs, offering services, feeding families, beginning with our own - it becomes an eternally significant work. When we get lost in trying to have a false historical significance that would be swallowed up more quickly than we can believe, I think in many ways we would have a wasted life because of that. So for me, work-life balance is really found in trying to see work as one of the primary forms of worship and offering it up in that regard.

Hays: Let’s look at that significance from the first blending of life and workplace.

As part of God’s original design for man, what should our proper response be to work? How did the Fall affect the attitude toward work?

Headley: I have dealt a lot with work-life balance issues from a secular vantage point, but until now, I have not really approached it from a Christian perspective. As I ponder this question, it is helpful to ask, what kind of work did God give Adam to do before the Fall? It seems pretty clear and simple: God gave Adam a job! He was to be the CEO of the Garden of Eden, which he is supposed to tend and keep.

So work did not come after the Fall.

Work is a God-given thing. Work is not a bad thing. It is all about how it fits with the perspective and priority under Christian principles, and how it is done so that we make a difference, being a light in the darkness and not just more of the darkness in this world. Our work is part of God’s plan. We shouldn’t shy away from July 2012 Christian Business Review 11

Work Life Balance Panel work or be lazy about doing it, yet we must do it to God’s glory. This is a principle that has stayed with me all my life.

After the Fall, the curses towards Adam (and of course towards women as well since they are in the workplace as much as men today, but even if they just labor in the home) – the toiling among thorns and thistles and laboring by the sweat of the brow – are sobering in that there is no let-up until we return to the ground. It is not like we get to check out at some point, taking a sabbatical or retiring and everything is going to be roses.

God says we are to work all of our lives.

There is no stopping! Is it any different than Adam tending the garden? Well, there weren’t any weeds, no poison ivy, in a garden where there was no sin!

As an employment lawyer, I think about how thorns and thistles and the sweat of the brow would translate into what I do. You know, we advise clients all day long and you hear about all these employment problems. The problems of the employees are like the poison ivy.

The sin in the workplace that bubbles up into problems and materializes into lawsuits - those are the thorns and thistles.

Interaction in the workplace with a difficult boss or a troubling subordinate employee – those are the poison ivy.

There is the toiling and the sweat of the brow. There is no smooth sailing. They all give us our challenges and opportunities to do all we can to God’s glory.

Hays: What are the different motivations that drive us to work so much, creating problems with life balance?

Mearse: Motive is very important. I started working when I was a teenager. I went to work for my dad’s company. He was an executive in a small chain of department stores in West Texas. I like to

CBR Articles say I started at the top, literally on the roof, cleaning air conditioning towers.

One thing I remember was that before I started working, my dad sat down with me and said, look, there are some things you need to understand as you go to work, mainly because of who you are and who I am. He continued to say that, number one, everybody is going to know who you are – you are the boss’s kid and, number two, they are going to watch everything you do – to see if you do earn your keep or are you pulling your weight because your dad is the boss. There is one more thing, he said: everything you do is going to reflect on me.

I have now lived in Houston for almost 32 years and I have worked as long for Accenture, which was Arthur Andersen when it first started. I grew up in Abilene, Texas and attended Baylor, so my life was not a very wild life, [not a] fast paced life by any means. I came to Houston in 1980, went to work for Arthur Andersen, and attended Second Baptist Church – all huge places to me but of course, nothing compared to what they are today.

Those first years were wild for me – not from an earthly standpoint, but just that I had never experienced change on that kind of scale. I struggled and kept running into people at work who said they worked hard in order to make a lot of money or to get ahead of the game. I was a Christian. I attended church, and I knew God was involved in work and all that. So unlike those people, I sensed that the self-worth, the power, the money, etc., could not be the reason why I was working. Then three years later, I was studying the book of Colossians and got into Chapter 3, where it says work as if you are working for the Lord. Boom! The light came on. It reminded me of the conversation I had ten years earlier with July 2012 Christian Business Review 12

Work Life Balance Panel my dad. I discovered I was working for my father again – it just wasn’t my earthly father but my heavenly father – and yes, all eyes were on me.

After that my whole perspective changed. I came to Houston, eager to move on within a few years, not sure for what purpose I was in Houston and on the payroll of Arthur Andersen. With the new perspective I said, okay, God, I accept why I am here – I am here to do whatever You want me to do. Then things started happening.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer and ended up spending a lot of time here in Houston going through treatment. If I had not been here, I don’t know what would have happened to my parents. Not much later I met my wife, got married, and was about to settle down when Arthur Andersen decided to send me to Anchorage, Alaska. Even before I questioned why I was sent there, I was teaching a fast growing Bible study class in an otherwise struggling local church. I came back to Houston and made partner when Andersen asked me to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a few years. Now that’s about where work-life balance drew the line for me. After much prayer, I left for KL and soon was teaching a big Bible class in an international church with people from all over the world.

What I have found from these experiences is that we work to serve God. Our work is not just a vocation but an opportunity to serve – to serve Him not just at the workplace but, as my Alaska and Malaysia experiences testify, in ministries that God would open up for us outside of the workplace. God wants us to be where we are to change lives and influence lives. Andersen and now Accenture were, and are still, secular places, but I would tell you that I have seen Christian influence coming into our organization,

CBR Articles particularly here in Houston. It has not been through overt evangelism...but rather through lifestyle witnessing and relationships. At the end of the day, what we have in this world is God and all those who have been saved, and that to me underscores what work is all about.

Surprisingly, when I discovered I was to work to serve God and obey Him, I got the promotions, the salary increases, the self-worth, and all the other stuff people told me they were striving for, as byproducts.

Hays: When the imbalance specifically affects the family, how often do you take family priorities and preferences into your decisions about work, considering the priorities of both your family and your subordinates?

Ammerman: About five to six years ago, I had my first conversation with our then-new country head. He phoned, complaining about the cost of flying into Houston from New York, and said he was going over the expenses [of my last Latin American trip]. I said [the explanation for the trip] was actually quite simple. I flew down on Super Bowl Sunday so that I could be there for a scheduled speech at a conference on Monday morning and to make some client visits during the week.

In the meantime, the CEO called and said he was going to be there the week before and asked me to go down and accompany him on visits to oil and gas companies in that country. So I was there the week before and the week after, and it just so happened there was an 8-year old girl who had a birthday on Saturday morning, so I went home between the two trips. I waited for the response. There was silence for a moment and he changed the topic.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 13

Work Life Balance Panel That fellow I had this conversation with is now my CEO. That was the first opportunity I had in a very direct way to share with him my work culture. It is a very distinct culture about how I deal with my family – I am always home for important events, period. I set the stage with the people with whom I work. I will tell them to just take care of the business at home and we will take care of the business at work, whatever it takes. Now you can do this in such a way that will make people feel guilty as they walk out the door and regret they ever asked. The key is to make sure they won’t regret asking and your motive is genuine.

When we first moved to Houston years ago, my dad worked as the ABC Evening News anchor. During weekdays I didn’t get to see him much because he would be at work when I got home from school and I would be asleep when he returned. I made a commitment when I started my professional career to do differently than that…My employees know I don’t want to see any email stamps on Sundays because I don’t want them to be at work on Sundays. Yet our group is one of the largest and most profitable in the entire global bank. As we know from the story of Chick-fil-A, it is just amazing how God prospers these things even when people are in their sleep. The Psalmist says, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep” (Psalm 127:3). It is so true.

Hays: Does work-life balance create happier and more productive employees?

Can workplace programs and policies be effective in promoting and encouraging life balance?

CBR Articles Draudt: Most definitely. More companies are starting to recognize that balance in people’s lives, more flex hours or four-day workweeks, would make better employees. I read recently that those companies that are going this direction are getting the very best employees.

When I first started working back in the 70s, women’s role was much different than today. I worked on and off throughout my early marriage when I needed to stay home to raise my children.

I was out nearly 10 years before I came to Houston and decided to take my career seriously. I got back into banking and started working for a very large financial institution. They were very good to me, but as I went up the career ladder, there came a lot of demands.

The firm was very bottom line driven.

I have three children and they are the most important things to me in this world, so balancing work and my children’s needs, being there at the ball games, recital, etc., was of utmost priority for me.

Incorporating demanding work into my family life became more and more difficult and dealing with it required increased suppression of my feelings.

Then seven and a half years ago I got a phone call from my former boss, a fine Christian man whom I enjoyed working with before. He asked me to consider coming to work with him. Instinctively I said no; I had over 19 years with my employer, satisfied clients, and a wonderful peer group. I had everything, so I thought. It was my life, my safety net. I was actually ranked in the top 10 percent in the nation at my firm. Yet he persisted and said, “I really want you to think about it and this is what I want you to think about: balance in your life because I know you don’t have it.”

Leaving something that is comfortable to you is very hard. When my advisJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 14

Work Life Balance Panel ers and trusted friends were no help, I turned to God in prayer and asked Him to please send me a sign and knock me over the head with it. Soon afterwards, I attended a funeral of a Christian friend, a young mother with boys in high school.

As I sat there and watched those boys and their father, it occurred to me that she had all the dreams that I had - to see the kids grow up, graduate from high school, go to college, meet that special someone, get married, be there for that first grandbaby, and so on and so forth - but then how quickly she was taken away from them! I could not have asked for a clearer sign. I made up my mind that day to make a change in my life. It was all about balance in my life, something [my former employer] could not give enough. I took a leap of faith and went to my new employer. That was 7 years ago and I have never looked back.

Not only have I found balance in the life of my family – myself, husband, children, grandchildren – but my career has not faltered. Instead it has grown, with nearly 90 percent of my clients ending up following me. Even more satisfying is that I have developed a passion to work with churches and non-profits, which make up a good part of my portfolio. I feel like I am doing God’s work while doing my job. That big bonus that I might have gotten from my former employer? I get a bigger one in more than monetary terms and now realize I can be successful without goals and lots of pressure. I think working for the right employer, taking that leap of faith, believing in God and that He’s got a plan and a direction for you, opens all kinds of doors.

Hays: What can we do to manage or overcome the tendency or compulsion to work too much so we can live a balanced

CBR Articles life? What are the biggest obstacles and constraints to creating a balanced life and what are the greatest facilitators?

Thomas: God often asks us to do the right thing and lets us pay a price for it. God in His sovereignty certainly has the right to do that. So if we want to effect work-life balance, sometimes we have to pay a price for that – a missed promotion, an income cut, a relocation to a different community or employer, etc. When the ideals of our family do not line up with the ideals of the employer, our allegiance is to the principles and teachings of Scripture. The result may be earthly prices we pay, the crosses we pick up daily in our journey of obedience.

I had the opportunity of being asked by one of the best-known churches in the country to join their staff. I told the pastor that I just told my children we wouldn’t move again. From a vocational standpoint, the offer was irresistible, yet I had to say no to that amazing opportunity because of my promise to the family. It was just one of those (take-up-your-) cross moments. Little did I know, of course, that an even bigger church here in Houston would make me the same offer only a few years later. In hindsight, the decision was a good one. So for those of you who haven’t had understanding bosses, I still think you are making the right choice by not gauging your work life on the basis of earthly influences, finance or promotions, etc.

Turning to the second part of the question, I am reminded of a family vacation we had in Hawaii. As we hiked up to the top of a mountain, the guide pointed to the plant next to us and said it is the most dangerous plant in the island.

It had killed more people than any other plant. Everybody took a step back when we heard that, assuming the plant was July 2012 Christian Business Review 15

Work Life Balance Panel poisonous. It turns out the plant is a fern that only grows on a very steep incline. It masks the fact that people close to the plant are actually standing on the edge of a precipice. People with a false sense of security would step on the fern and fall inevitably to their death.

Let me suggest that there are three spiritual ferns when we look at work-life balance. As a pastor, I would advise that if you experience one of these it should cause some concern. If you experience two, you might as well be on the precipice. If you experience all three, I would suggest that you call a counselor or a pastor before you head back to the office just for self-preservation.

First, I find that people who are out of balance tend to get very lonely. They lose that relational identity. From a spiritual perspective, Satan dines on lonely people and spits them out. Loneliness denigrates our ability to resist temptation. It is not a sin to be lonely and it could happen to anybody, but to allow ourselves to stay that way is unwise. When we become lonely, we become very vulnerable, and most of us don’t manage loneliness very well. So if you are consistently lonely, it is a sign of being out of balance and it should be taken seriously. Second is tiredness. When we are tired we succumb to emotions like anger, treat others improperly, give less to our relationships, and become more vulnerable to temptation. So a consistently tired body is something to be concerned about. Last but not least is a lack of joy. The mark of a Christian is to have great joy with what God has done for us. If everything appears like drudgery to us, then what kind of gospel are we proclaiming? How can we be bearers of good news when we live with a sour face? The effectiveness of our testimonies is compromised.

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Spiritual ferns:

1. Loneliness 2. Tiredness 3. Lack of joy

What I pointed out is nothing but simple life management issues. Like spiritual ferns, they are not necessarily poisonous but they set us up for poisonous acts, attitudes and desires. As such we need to guard against them. After all, life balance is not just about ourselves but our families, too. If we go, our family goes with it. The church will be affected and so will be our fellow believers and their witness in the business community.

Hays: What has been the result for people who have been able to effect life balance?

What is the richest blessing you ever received as a direct result of life balance?

What is the greatest price you ever paid?

Headley: All the research I have done on Christianity and work-life balance confirms that the Bible does not address the issue, at least not directly. Where the rubber meets the road is this: God puts us in this world to work and does not tell us when to stop. Is that a bad thing? It can be if we end up stepping on spiritual ferns and fall over the cliff, as Gary pointed out.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 16

Work Life Balance Panel In passages that talk about working, God gives us perspectives through nuggets such as, masters, be kind to your servant, or servants, give your master his due, or fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger, or wives, submit to your husband, etc. These are principles that we can integrate and come up with a recipe for a balanced life.

In our firm there are 840 lawyers in 50 offices all over the map and I have been involved in a lot of leadership roles.

One of these roles I currently hold is Ammerman “The way we conduct ourselves tells people we are Christ followers…people know what we stand for even before they meet us in person.”

Draudt “I think working for the right employer, taking that leap of faith, believing in God and that He’s got a plan and a direction for you, opens all kinds of doors.”

Headley “My view was that what I owed my master was that (required) minimum. I didn’t owe one hour more.”

Mearse “God wants us to be where we are to change lives and influence lives.”

Thomas “As Christians, how we finish is just as important as how we start. If we don’t finish well, we sort of undercut our whole life of work as a witness for Christ.”

CBR Articles co-chair of women’s leadership initiatives with a subgroup called work/life balance. I do think companies can have a faith-based workplace without being a Christian workplace, and ours, for example, is an inclusive tent with adopted policies on work-life balance that actually work.

A personal priority for me in the leadership role of my company is to help young women who came into the law practice to avoid falling by the wayside because of work-life balance issues.

These young women went through law school and excelled. They might not be married when they started with the firm.

The pressure was high, the time-off was little. They got married, and they had children. I have watched it happen too many times when these young women had no choice but to leave the profession under the circumstances. In the early days of my practice of law, there were no alternative ways, such as some kind of a flex schedule, to accommodate the needs of these young mothers. But it does [accommodate them] today. It is something I have felt very keen about as I managed the office.

So what is the richest blessing? A dear friend who had left the firm earlier this year sent me [a] personal note [expressing deep gratitude for my support of her and her family]. What other blessings do I need when such words and feelings weigh far more than the money I have made or the honor or prestige I ever received?

I believe in my earlier years I did pay a price monetarily and in terms of career advancement. Law firms gauge you on productivity, which is that all-important billable-hour. Every law firm I have been with, there is a threshold minimum. My view was that what I owed my master was that minimum. I didn’t owe one hour July 2012 Christian Business Review 17

Work Life Balance Panel more. If I got a performance bonus because of billable hours, then I felt I had taken it away from my family. So I tried to hit it and never tried to exceed it. My employer can always expect me to do a really good job meeting the minimum, but I was not going to take away from my children any more than I already did by being here.

Hays: What has to happen in order for work to become a daily act of worship? Is it even possible? What poses the greatest threat to victorious living day by day, year after year?

Draudt: I believe it is important to surround yourself with people who have like values and morals. All my customers are special to me but there are some who are more relatable. I tend to associate myself with Christian leaders in the community.

They are someone you can pick up the phone and call, share your thoughts, bounce ideas off and get good feedback.

To have an active act of worship, you need to share things that are important to you with people who are like you, harboring strong Christian values.

Ammerman: At church, we have visitation nights when we go visit newcomers to tell them about the church and get to know them. I woke up one day and realized that is what I do as a banker, too.

We visit clients, cold call prospects, tell them about our business, and get to know them. In I Timothy 4:12, Paul tells us to show ourselves an example of those who believe. Just last week, I was in Europe visiting clients, [and I had prayed] to find a way to bridge gaps and build a relationship so that I could be an example where not many are followers of Christ.

The way we conduct ourselves tells people we are Christ-followers, and

CBR Articles people often know us (and what we stand for) even before they have a chance to meet us in person. I have strong relationships with fellow believers who represent some of the very best clients I have in this town. There are a lot of bigger banks than ours around the world.

How we get these clients into our portfolio often has a lot to do with the glue that holds our relationships, and more often than not, it is the witness and the faith they find in me. Trust is built on our witness and God rewards that.

Mearse: I have found several truths about work-life balance. First, work-life balance differs from person to person. I used to work with a fellow who had very different work habits than I did, and only much later did I realize we had different life balances. We have to manage our expectations and should avoid comparing ours against others’.

Second, work-life balance changes over time. Had you told me after joining the firm that I had to relocate to Anchorage or Kuala Lumpur, I would have quit on the spot. Yet the assignments, when they came, turned out to be blessings.

Third, there will be times when there won’t be any balance. I always say at college recruiting events that we sometimes work under a term paper syndrome.

You’ve got to work a little harder and later to get the paper done on the night before it is due. In the business world, that may not be the night before, but two or three months before. So there will be times when your life is out of balance.

The last truth I want to mention is that you have to manage your own expectations as well as those of whom you are working for. But also let them know what true balance means to you. I remember there was a time when I was working July 2012 Christian Business Review 18

Work Life Balance Panel seven days a week while shuttling back and forth between Florida and Houston.

It was about the time I was up for review for partner, when I told my boss that if I had to be working seven days a week consistently I wouldn’t be here very long.

I had other commitments than just work.

We need to know and set our boundaries and make them known to those we work with.

Thomas: An out-of-balance work life is sort of like smoking. You can get away with an occasional cigar or a few cigarettes, but eventually, if you get heavily into it, you get hurt. You can cope with an out-of-balance marriage for a while, but if you stop working on your marriage, you will end up spending a lot of time working on your divorce. The same goes for your children. If you don’t spend

CBR Articles the time raising them, eventually you may spend a lot of time dealing with cops, courts, and substance abuse counselors. I am not saying it will happen, but it is definitely more likely you would have to deal with the fallout.

It is the same health-wise. If we keep sacrificing our physical health by not eating, exercising, or sleeping, our body can handle that for a while. Yet our life can be brought to a sudden stop when we come down with any number of ailments resulting from a life that has long been out of balance. So just because the consequences are not immediate does not mean we should be blind to the effects of imbalance. As Christians, how we finish is just as important as how we start. If we don’t finish well, we sort of undercut our whole life of work as a witness for Christ. 

July 2012 Christian Business Review 19

Why Business Matters to God

A Note from the Editors: As the Editorial Board of the Christian Business Review, we look forward to building a great body of scholarship, literature, and conversations about doing real business in the real world, especially as we consider our mutual challenges in the light of the Christian scriptures and through the experience of the Christian life.

In this inaugural issue, we are blessed to be able to include the introductory chapter of Jeff Van Duzer's book, Why Business Matters to God. After all, that is what we are all working to understand, and to the extent that we believe that business does matter to God, then we are working together to encourage and help one another to act as if this is so. We appreciate InterVarsity Press and Jeff Van Duzer for giving us permission to reprint this material, and we hope that it will be a conversation starter for all of us.

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*Taken from Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed) by Jeff Van Duzer, Chapter One: In the Beginning.

Copyright(c) 2010 by Jeff Van Duzer. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.

Jeff Van Duzer is Dean of the School of Business and Economics and professor of business law and ethics at Seattle Pacific University. For twenty years prior to that, he practiced law in Seattle with an emphasis on finance and natural resources.

He writes and speaks frequently in both church and professional settings. He received his J.D. from Yale University School of Law. July 2012 Christian Business Review 20

Why Business Matters to God

C

onsider an unfinished parable: Three students make appointments to ask a pastor for career advice.

The first student explains that she is considering going to law school and asks the pastor why God might want a Christian to be a lawyer. After thinking about her question for a moment, the pastor answers that Christians in law make sense because God cares about justice.

By becoming a lawyer she can help advance God‘s desire for a just society. The second student explains that he is considering a career in medicine and asks why God might want Christians to serve as doctors or nurses. ―That‘s simple,‖ the pastor replies, ―God cares about wholeness, and by pursuing a career in the medical field you can play a key part in God‘s healing work in the world.‖ The last student arrives for her appointment and says she is considering a career in business. She asks the pastor why God might want her to pursue such a career.

At this point, however, the parable remains unfinished. How should the pastor respond? If law furthers God‘s interest in justice and medicine furthers God‘s interest in healing, what aspect of God‘s work will a business career further?

Or, put differently, from God‘s perspective what is the purpose of business?

God’s Purpose for Business Answering this question is not as simple as it may seem at first. Indeed, on closer examination, this one question raises three other preliminary questions.

First, does it even make sense to talk about God having a purpose for business?

Or does God only have a purpose for people in business? Stated more generally, does God have purposes for institutions? Or is it better to understand institutions (such as corporations, economic systems, governments) as merely artifi-

CBR Articles cial human constructs that are in and of themselves inherently neutral—they can further or thwart God‘s desires depending on the intentions and actions of the human beings within them, but as separate things they are of no account.

Second, setting aside for the moment the question of institutions, what do we mean when we ask about God‘s purpose for people in business?1 The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1674) begins this way: Question 1. What is the chief end of man?

Answer. Man‘s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Is this all that we can say about God‘s purpose for people active in business?

Does God simply have a general purpose for men and women—to glorify and enjoy God—that they are to faithfully pursue across all of their activities? Or can we say something more? Are there any unique purposes that God would like to see accomplished through business activities?

And finally, assuming that God has unique purposes for people in business, are these purposes intrinsic to the actual business activity or only instrumental?

For example, businesses can make money for their owners, who in turn can use that money to support mission activities. In this sense businesses could be said to serve God‘s purposes instrumentally. They generate the funds necessary to sponsor God‘s desired activity.

Businesses can also serve as a platform from which Christians can share their faith with others. Here too is a use for business. Instrumentally, it creates a forum for the sharing of the gospel. But still, this is not intrinsic to business itself.

Christians are called on to ―be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks‖ July 2012 Christian Business Review 21

Why Business Matters to God about their faith regardless of the setting (1 Peter 3:15). In the supermarket, on the

Does business have an intrinsic as well as instrumental purpose in God’s kingdom? sidelines of soccer fields, in PTSA meetings as well as in work settings, Christians are invited to share the good news sensitively with all who might be interested in hearing. This fact, however, does not tell us much about how God intends to use the practice of business itself.

Specifically, can we say that business activities—analyzing balance sheets, manufacturing products, marketing goods, providing performance reviews—in and of themselves further God‘s kingdom?2 Does business have an intrinsic as well as instrumental purpose?

The Search for Purpose Searching for biblically based answers to these questions is not easy. In a narrow verse-by-verse sense there is not much to work with. One can find a handful of ethical admonitions such as the Old Testament‘s prescription against using faulty scales to apportion out purchased grain (Proverbs 11:1) or the New Testament‘s admonitions to pay a worker his or her just due (Luke 10:7). Unfortunately, even in the aggregate these prove to be fairly thin threads from which to weave a whole theology. While there is certainly a great deal of teaching in Scripture on economics and a regular call to fair dealing, there is very little written directly about the purpose of business activities, the appropriate limits of busi-

CBR Articles ness and its role, if any, in God‘s work in the world.

Consequently, rather than seeking to construct a theology of business from a handful of specific verses, I have found it more useful to build on what has sometimes been called the ―grand narrative.‖ All of Scripture (through many writings and in many genres) tells one basic story—one basic story in four great movements.

In the beginning God created a world and placed human beings at its center (creation). It was God‘s intent to enjoy creation and live in a loving intimacy with humankind forever. This initial intent, however, was thwarted by human disobedience (the Fall). All the rest of the story is about reconciliation.

God seeks to reestablish the love relationship that was intended from the beginning (redemption). These efforts climax with God‘s arrival in the person of Jesus Christ, who breaks down the wall of separation through his death and resurrection and inaugurates the new creation. The full implications of this victory are revealed in the last Chapters of the story, the final conclusion (consummation).

The choice of a narrative hermeneutic and the identification of these four great movements of Scripture is certainly not the only option. Theology can be shaped in a number of crucibles. For example, many theologians work in fields of moral, historical or practical theologies. Even for those committed to a biblical theology, there can be many different organizing principles. And to make matters more complicated, even among those adopting a narrative approach to their biblical theologies, there are differences over how to divide the Scriptures into separate movements.3 My choice of narrative is partially July 2012 Christian Business Review 22

Why Business Matters to God tactical, as ―story‖ seems to be one of the most effective means of communicating truth in our current cultural environment.

Hopefully it is also an ecumenical approach. While the creation – fall – redemption – consummation framework is often associated with the Reformed tradition, as a basic outline of the biblical story it can be adopted by a wide variety of Christian faith traditions. Indeed down through the history of the church this has been a standard way to describe the Christian journey. The emphasis placed on each movement may differ slightly from tradition to tradition (and the implications that follow from these differing emphases may be nontrivial), but still as a basic outline of the overall biblical narrative, this approach should allow for different traditions to find common ground.4 In the context of this grand narrative, then, it makes sense to begin our search

What did God have in mind at the very beginning? for purpose with a consideration of the creation movement. After all, the creation account describes the world as God originally intended it to be. While the Fall interfered with this plan (and will need to be considered separately), it is still useful to start by considering what God had in mind at the very beginning.

The Brevity of the Creation Account When we think of the Scripture story as comprising four grand movements, it is remarkable that the description of the first two of the four movements is completed by the end of the third Chapter of the first book. Creation is described in

CBR Articles Genesis 1–2.5 The Fall is described in Genesis 3. Everything else in Scripture—the remainder of Genesis, the remaining thirty-eight books in the Old Testament and all of the New Testament—is given over to the great third movement of redemption and the fourth movement of consummation.

For our purposes the very brevity of the creation account should serve as an important reminder. First, it reminds us that God is most fully known in redemptive activity. In some ways, virtually the entire Bible tells the story of God‘s efforts to restore the relationships that God desired from the beginning. It is a story of love—a love that is expressed in a constant reaching out, a grace that seeks communion with a rebellious people, consistently offering them that which they do not deserve. A theology of business must be set, first and foremost, in the context of God‘s desire to restore this loving relationship.

Second, as we turn to the ―creation movement‖ itself, the sheer brevity of this section of Scripture must give us pause as we seek to draw conclusions about God‘s original plan. Here we find only the slightest of hints, almost imperceptible nods toward various aspects of divine truth. On the one hand, this brevity invites us to speculate from the tiniest of clues. On the other hand, it reminds us that for the most part we are speculating. The terse account reinforces our need for humility, reminding us that we must wrap our conclusions in a cloak of tentativeness. Much of the meaning of the creation story will necessarily remain shrouded in mystery.

Observations from Creation With these cautions in mind, then, let us consider what observations we might make from the account of creation.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 23

Why Business Matters to God 1. The material world matters to God. The observation that the material world matters to God is so obvious that it would be easy to overlook. Throughout the Genesis account of creation God makes material things, and each is declared good. Clearly, the material world matters to God. When God conceives of human flourishing, it involves, in part, the satisfaction of the material needs and desires of men and women.6 Food that nourishes, roofs that hold out the rain, shade that protects from the heat of the sun—these are all part of God‘s good design. When businesses produce material things that enhance the welfare of the community, they are engaged in work that matters to God. 2. Human beings are called to steward God’s creation. The Genesis account reminds us that the world was made by God and remains God‘s creation.

God made the heavens and the earth. God turned on the lights. God parted the waters to bring forth the sky as well as dry land. God made plants and wildlife, and for a finale, made human beings.

Nowhere in the account is there any suggestion, however, that title to creation was somehow then transferred to Adam and Eve. The only things given to them outright were ―seed-bearing plants‖ and ―fruits with seeds,‖ and these were only made available to them as food (Genesis 1:29). By the double reference to ―seeds,‖ the account suggests that even in this provision for them, God did not intend to relinquish the ongoing productive capacity of God‘s creation to human beings.

They could eat the fruit, and the plants would continue to grow more fruit. In effect, Adam and Eve were invited to enjoy the income from God‘s trust without invading the principal. God remained the owner. As the psalmist reminds us:

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The earth is the Lord‘s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

(Psalm 24:1-2 (NIV))

This is not to say, however, that Adam and Eve were mere passive beneficiaries of God‘s largesse. They were given a role to play. In a short-hand way we can identify this role as one of ―stewards‖ or in more modern parlance ―trustees.‖ A steward (or trustee) is ―a person who manages another‘s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another.‖7 Human beings were called to steward God‘s creation on God‘s behalf. ―The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it‖ (Genesis 2:15).

For Christians in business, acknowledging their role as stewards is an important first step toward understanding God‘s intentions for business. Implicit in this acknowledgment is the conviction that the business does not belong to them or to any other earthly owners. It belongs to God. This sets the frame through which any consideration of shareholder or stakeholder rights must be viewed.

Of course, this is not the end of the inquiry. It is not enough just to conclude that we act as stewards of God‘s creation.

This conclusion invites the next question: if we are to manage creation for God‘s purposes, what end should we be pursuing? What does the owner want us to do with the ―trust corpus‖?

Consider, by analogy, a family trust established today. In law, the trustee who agrees to administer the trust for the family is bound to follow the instructions of the one who formed and funded the trust, the trust‘s ―settlor.‖ These instrucJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 24

Why Business Matters to God tions are usually set forth in a trust agreement. To the extent that the agreement is silent on certain points, the law will fill in the gaps by implying certain duties for the trustee. For example, by law a trustee owes the trust his or her undivided loyalty. All self-dealing with trust assets is strictly prohibited. The trustee may not favor one class of beneficiaries over another and must diversify the portfolio to avoid unreasonable risk and so on. Moreover, subject to all of these constraints, the trustee‘s charge is clear: he or she is to maximize the return on trust assets for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries.

By analogy, then, for Christians it is not enough just to declare that we act as God‘s stewards. It is an important first step but not the end of the discussion. As stewards/trustees we need to know what our goal in managing the ―trust corpus‖ is and what constraints we need to abide by along the way. More specifically, as stewards of God‘s businesses, we need to know what our goal (or purpose) is when managing the business and what limitations we need to observe to manage the business in accordance with God‘s desires.8 3. Human beings are made in the image of God. On three separate occasions we are told that human beings are made in the image of God. Then God said, ―Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.‖ . . .

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

What does this mean? In what sense are human beings stamped with God‘s image?

This is a difficult question to answer and Scripture gives few clues. Theolo-

CBR Articles gians have debated the issue at length.

The notion that we have been created in God‘s image is not confined to the Genesis account but is repeated on a number of occasions throughout the Scriptures.

Evidently it involves a close parallel between the original and the image; on two occasions—2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15—Christ is said to be the ―image‖ of God the Father. It suggests that the image-bearer plays a role in revealing the essence of the Other.

At a minimum, however, we should find in the Genesis use of ―image‖ an intent to reflect those characteristics of God that have already been described in the Genesis account. Specifically, two such characteristics are important for our purpose. First, God has been described as inherently relational (―Let us make man in our image, in our likeness‖ [Genesis 1:26]). Second, God has been described as a worker. God makes things.

Relationship. The God in whose image Adam and Eve were created is the trinitarian God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—a God inherently relational from before the beginning of time. The plural pronouns in Genesis 1:26 remind us that before God did anything, God in three persons was. All of the mighty acts of creation flowed out of that relationship.

Indeed, because the work of creation was itself an overflowing of the love nature of the Godhead, it was a tangible expression of this relational character. The work gave expression to the relationship.

Moreover, since creation was designed to return glory to God, the work of creation not only came out of relationship but was intended to return for the benefit of the Trinity.

As people made in God‘s image we are reminded that human beings are also inherently relational. We are only fully complete in community. As God reJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 25

Why Business Matters to God marked about Adam: ―It is not good for the man to be alone‖ (Genesis 2:18). The nurturing and building of community is, therefore, one of the fundamental tasks to be pursued by those seeking to be genuinely human. To be true to the Genesis account, any theology of business must be relational and communitarian in character. Relationships in community must precede labor and productivity. Business must flow from relationship and be shaped so as to flow back to support the community.

Work. The God in whose image Adam and Eve were created was also a worker.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3, emphasis added)

Men and women, then, were made in part to work, and by so doing to reflect this aspect of God‘s glory.

Christians often incorrectly perceive work as having been assigned to human beings as punishment for Adam and Eve‘s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Nothing could be further from the truth. The call and the opportunity to work were embedded into the very fabric of human beings as they were first designed by God. Adam and Eve were assigned work in the Garden from the beginning.

And it was not just any work. Since Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, they were made with an inherent capacity for and need to be engaged in creative activity. Of course, their creative activities differed from God‘s in that only

CBR Articles God creates out of nothing (ex nihilo).9 Human creativity is always derivative, always derived from the work of the Creator. But still, to reflect God‘s image is to create, to innovate—to bring new things and new ways of doing things into being.

In business terms God made the initial capital investment. He richly endowed the earth with resources. Adam and Eve were the initial managers called to creatively organize (name the animals) and manage these resources (take dominion), to enhance the productivity of the Garden (be fruitful and multiply) in a sustainable (guard creation) manner.

Creativity is not just a gift given to some artists or design engineers. It is inherent in the very meaning of being human.

In addition, if the work that Christians do is to reflect the work of God, it must also be meaningful work. After each act of creation, God examined the creative handiwork and pronounced it ―good‖ (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and after the creation of human beings, ―very good‖ (v. 31). For our work to mirror God‘s it too must aim for outcomes that are good. Good work has substance and meaning.

When humans engage in creative, meaningful work that grows out of relationships and gives back to the community they become more deeply human. Of course, work became more difficult as a consequence of the Fall (―Cursed is the ground because of you; . . . it will produce thorns and thistles for you‖ [Genesis 3:17-18]). But the pre-Fall picture is of human beings gardening and farming on land that readily yielded its produce without demanding payment in sweat and toil. Indeed, pre-Fall work was inherently pleasurable.

One last thought about being made ―in the image of God.‖ While there is a July 2012 Christian Business Review 26

Why Business Matters to God sacred quality to all creation—it was all made by God and God pronounced all of it ―good‖—human beings were given a unique status and dignity. They alone of all the creatures were made ―in the image of God‖ (Genesis 1:27). Down through history the church has consistently taught that the dignity of men and women must be particularly respected in light of their unique place in the created order.

4. Humans are made to live within limits. A fourth observation follows from the third. While human beings were made in the image of God, men and women were clearly not made to be gods. Nowhere in the creation narrative are Adam and Eve offered the opportunity to become God, nor are they assured that as originally created, they are already gods.

In fact, the narrative takes pains to communicate just the opposite. God preexists. It is God who speaks the world into being, setting its boundaries and defining its essence. God is beyond boundaries. God is unlimited.

By contrast, God places a limit at the very center of human existence.

In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . .

And the Lord God commanded the man, ―You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.‖ (Genesis 2:9, 16-17)

Thus, to be fully human is to be inherently limited.

The serpent understood this. When the serpent tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, he assured her that by so doing she could be ―like God‖ (Genesis 3:5). The fundamental temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to was the

CBR Articles temptation to deny their limited nature in an effort to be, for themselves, gods.10 5. God delights in variety. A fifth observation that we can take from the Genesis account is that diversity appears to be built into the very fabric of God‘s design. Even before God created human beings, God created a wide array of other creatures. Elsewhere in Scripture we are reminded that God enjoys the breadth of creation in all of its variety. It is enjoyed for its own sake and not simply for any utilitarian value that it serves.11 When God perceived that Adam was inappropriately ―alone,‖ God did not make a second Adam. Rather, God made an Eve. Eve was different—a difference that complemented and made whole Adam, who was in himself incomplete.

God‘s love for diversity is reflected throughout the Scriptures. One of the more confusing passages in the Old Testament relates to an early effort by humanity to build a tower in the city of Babel (Genesis 11:1- 9). What marked these efforts was that all those engaged in the building spoke with one language and appeared to be motivated by a single purpose. In this primordial story, God intervenes in judgment, scattering the peoples and giving them a multitude of languages, which precludes them from communicating with one another.

It is often noted that Pentecost was a reversal of God‘s judgment at Babel, but this is only partially true. It is true in that through the out-pouring of the Spirit, unity was once again made possible for God‘s people. Everyone was able to understand each other and communicate across cultural barriers (―each one heard them speaking in his own language‖ [Acts 2:6]). It was not a reversal of Babel, however, in the sense that it returned everyone to a single language. Rather, it appears that in God‘s intended design July 2012 Christian Business Review 27

Why Business Matters to God there will always be a multitude of peoples speaking a multitude of languages. Even at the end of times we are told that kings and nations from around the world, consisting of different peoples and different cultures, will come to worship God (Revelation 21:24). God delights in the diversity of the created order.

6. The Garden was incomplete. Finally, in the first two Chapters of Genesis humankind is assigned certain tasks.

Specifically Adam and Eve were to ―subdue‖ and ―rule‖ over the created order (Genesis 1:28). They were to ―be fruitful.‖ In this way they were to ―fill the earth‖ (Genesis 1:28). They were given an opportunity to name the animals, to classify and bring order to creation (Genesis 2:19-20). They were called to ―take care of‖ the earth and thereby protect God‘s created order (Genesis 2:15).

These tasks were given by God to humanity as a blessing. Performance of the tasks allowed men and women to express aspects of their very identities and to delight in the work itself. But the performance of these tasks also served another purpose.

The Garden of Eden before the Fall is correctly described as an expression of God‘s perfect will. Here the goodness of the original creation prevailed. This goodness was expressed in a flourishing and harmonious peace. It would be incorrect to say, however, that the Garden of Eden as initially created by God was complete—that had Adam and Eve only avoided the forbidden fruit, humankind would have lived to the end of time in this unchanging idyllic garden setting.

In Genesis we are told that after creating the necessary raw materials God still did not cause the fields to flourish because no humans were yet available to work the fields.

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When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground. (Genesis 2:4-5, emphasis added)

The Garden was created as a perfectly balanced and resourced starting point. As originally designed, however, the Garden of Eden was not God‘s intended endpoint. God anticipated moving on from the perfection of the Garden, relying, at least in part, on the activity of the men and women who God had placed in the Garden. They would till the fields.

They would gather the fruit. They would understand, organize and classify aspects of the created order. They would create new things. They would be fruitful. As a people they would fill the earth and work the created order to ensure that it was fruitful in a like manner. In other words, God anticipated partnering with human beings to cause the Garden of Eden to flourish.

Of course, God could have chosen to provide for the world supernaturally.

Every morning, for example, God could have dropped manna flakes from heaven, and our responsibility would have been limited to running around with our mouths open and our tongues out. But for most of history God did not do this. Rather, human beings were created with a capacity to pool their resources (what we now call ―capital‖), to design and build an oven (technological innovation), to order and receive shipments of flour (supply chain), to bake bread (operations), to put it on trucks (logistics) and to deliver it to a hungry world. As Martin Luther once said, as we do the work to July 2012 Christian Business Review 28

Why Business Matters to God which we have been called we become the hands of God.12 We actually take the bread that God intended to provide for a hungry world and make delivery on God‘s behalf.13 This work has intrinsic and not just instrumental value in the kingdom of God. In God‘s economy, to say that something is perfect is not to suggest that it is done. The Garden was perfect, but it was not static. In fact, even the ―end of time‖ is probably not best conceived of as a static destination where we will someday arrive. As stewards we are not aiming for a fixed endpoint, just for a further and more robust flourishing, an ever-growing and deepening intimacy.14 At the beginning God didn‘t deliver a finished product; rather, God provided a setting in which human beings, working with and enabled by God, could cause the created order to flourish.

Thus, to summarize so far, God created the world and everything in it. It belongs to God. As a part of this creation God created men and women and endowed them with a unique dignity. They alone were created in God‘s image, designed from the beginning to reflect God‘s glory. They were created for relationship, with one another and with God. They were created as diverse creatures with differences that complemented each other and delighted God. They were called to work as co-creators with God, to

CBR Articles steward the creation. God intended that men and women would take the raw materials that had been provided and, in partnership with God, help to grow and construct the kingdom here on earth. Men and women were not, however, created to become God. At the center of their existence were to be limits and God called them to live from that place of limitedness.

God’s Purpose for Humankind: Narrowing the Question Let us now return to one of the original questions. Does the Westminster Catechism say all that can be said about God‘s intended role for humankind (to glorify God and enjoy him forever)? Or can we identify a more specific charge to Adam and Eve from the Genesis account?

There is no doubt that the Genesis account confirms that our primary vocation is to glorify God. Created ―in his image,‖ our lives are intended to reflect or reveal the divine glory—God‘s essence and character. But the creation mandate adds specificity to this general calling.

For one, we reflect God‘s glory through nurturing our relationships with God and with one another. The Garden narrative in Genesis 3 provides us with a tantalizing hint of the intimate friendships that must have existed before the

God intended that men and women would take the raw materials that had been provided and, in partnership with God, help to grow and construct the kingdom here on earth. July 2012 Christian Business Review 29

Why Business Matters to God Fall: Adam and Eve walking and chatting with God in the Garden ―in the cool of the day‖ (Genesis 3:8). As we model this loving intimacy in our relationships with God and with others we reflect an aspect of the triune Godhead and give God glory.

But we also glorify God by engaging in the work we have been called to undertake. Already we have seen that this work is to be meaningful, engage our creativity, reflect our diversity, and grow out of and give back to the community.

These are characteristics of God‘s work; when our work reflects these characteristics, we reveal God‘s glory.

But we have also seen that our work can glorify God in another way. Our work is actually used to accomplish God‘s purposes on earth. In addition to exhibiting God-like characteristics, we are invited to participate in the bringing about of God-desired results. In Genesis God assigns particular tasks to humanity.

Adam and Eve were told to ―subdue‖ and ―rule‖ over the created order, to work the fields, to ―multiply‖ and ―be fruitful,‖ to ―fill the earth,‖ to give order to creation, and to guard the earth. One aspect of these tasks was to involve Adam and Eve in partnering with God to cause the land to bring forth its crops so as to provide for the material well-being of God‘s people and the created order. In the performance of these tasks, Adam and Eve advance God‘s agenda and thereby give God glory.

Collectively, these activities enable the community to flourish as God intended.

They are to be undertaken for God and, as it is sometimes said, ―for the common good.‖15 The Role of Business In the Creation Mandate But what does this have to say specifically about business? Business is, of

CBR Articles course, not the only institution that human beings operate in. Christians in business are also members of families, citizens of nations, congregants in local churches and participants in various other institutions of civil society (e.g., book clubs, intramural sports teams, food kitchens and environmental groups).

What then is the relationship between the work of any one institution and the overall creation mandate?

One possibility, of course, is that each person is called to perform each Genesis task in each institution or role. If this were correct we would conclude that every Christian in business must through business engage in every one of the Genesis activities. But surely this cannot be the case. Consider one obvious example.

Adam and Eve were called to multiply.

That is, they were to enjoy sexual relations and produce off-spring. For this ―task‖ there is a corresponding institution, the family. Presumably, during moments of sexual intimacy, neither Adam nor Eve was expected to be tilling the ground or naming animals.

To house the production of offspring in the institution of business (or anywhere else other than in the family) would be a perversion of God‘s intent.

Rather, it would seem that certain institutions are better suited for certain tasks.

The family is a better institution in which to situate the bearing and raising of children (be fruitful and multiply). The church and neighborhood might be the best settings to nurture community.

Universities may be the best setting for the study and analysis of the created order (naming the animals). The government, with its coercive powers, may be in a better position to assume primary responsibility for guarding creation.

In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul talks about all of the different funcJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 30

Why Business Matters to God tions that the church is to perform. These include teaching, preaching, prophesying, administering and a number of others.

But was each individual Christian called to perform all of these functions? Certainly not.

There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. . . .

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. . . .

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues?

Do all interpret? (1 Corinthians 12:5-7, 12, 27-30)

In an analogous way, all of humanity is charged with all of the Genesis tasks, but each individual and each individual institution is only one part of the body.

Each institution has only a part to play in the whole.

Of course, there is no reason to assume that any given institution will always be responsible for the same aspects of the creation mandate. As the nature of these institutions and the societies they are found in change over time, various aspects of the creation mandate may be

CBR Articles reallocated between institutional spheres of activity in different proportions. At some times aspects of the mandate might be best furthered by government action.

In different times the same tasks might be best pursued through private enterprise.

Sometimes a university should take the lead in advancing research. In other circumstances it might best be conducted by the state or a corporation. A consideration of which tasks make the most sense for which institutions at any given moment is ultimately a time-bound and culturally embedded decision.16 So the question boils down to this: In our twenty-first-century context, which aspects of the creation mandate are best suited for business to handle? Or using Paul‘s language, what is the unique giftedness of business at this time and place in history?

In my judgment, the answer is twofold. First, business appears to be uniquely well situated to work the fields, to cause the land to be fruitful, and to fill the earth—what we might in modern parlance characterize as ―to create wealth.‖ Second, business is also the dominant institution (although obviously not the only one) equipped to provide organized opportunities for meaningful and creative work. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its state-managed economies, it now appears beyond question that in the twenty-first century private enterprise operating in a relatively free market system will be the institution best positioned to efficiently deliver the goods and services desired by worldwide consumers and the most prolific source of new job creation.

From this I would conclude that at this time in history, there are two legitimate, first-order, intrinsic purposes of business: as stewards of God‘s creation, business leaders should manage their July 2012 Christian Business Review 31

Why Business Matters to God businesses (1) to provide the community with goods and services that will enable it to flourish, and (2) to provide opportunities for meaningful work that will allow employees to express their God-given creativity. One goal for the Christian businessperson who is stewarding God‘s business is focused outward—providing goods and services that enhance the quality of life. One goal focuses inward—creating opportunities for individuals within the company to express their vocation in the performance of Godglorifying work.17 When managers pursue these particular goals for their companies, they participate directly in God‘s creation mandate. They engage in work of intrinsic and not just instrumental

Provide community with goods and services, enabling it to flourish

Two Intrinsic Purposes of Business

CBR Articles value.18 Before we press on, let me clarify something about this purpose statement.

So far, I have attempted to identify God‘s purpose for business as a whole. In effect, I have been trying to identify those goals that God might set down were God to write a corporate mission statement for the whole institution of business. I have suggested that the mission statement would focus on the twin goals of providing appropriate goods and services and providing meaningful and creative work. Of course, by negative implication, I have also left some things out. For example, I don‘t believe that ―fostering of relationships in community‖ or ―protecting the environment‖ would make

Provide opportunities for meaningful work, allowing employees to express their God-given creativity

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Why Business Matters to God God‘s list of fundamental purposes for the institution of business as a whole.

This does not mean, however, that these tasks are not essential for human flourishing or even that they are of no importance to business. As we will discuss at length in the following Chapters, all faithful businesses will need to take these and a variety of other similar concerns into account—if not as their purpose, their raison d’être, then at least as constraints on their operations. We have much more work to do. But we begin with the notion that pursuit of these particular purposes—providing appropriate goods and services, and meaningful and creative work—is a piece of, a starting place for, what it means to be a faithful steward of God‘s business.

Three Related Observations Three closing observations are in order.

First, note that this formulation of the purpose of business makes the particular goods and services to be produced a relevant consideration. Specifically, are they goods and services that God would want to make available to the world at this time? Many times I have met with Christians in business who have suggested that the specific output of their efforts is irrelevant. All that counts, they argue, is how they engage in their business activities (e.g., with honesty and compassion). I disagree. Virtually everyone would agree that a pimp or prostitute (even one who does his or her work with integrity, compassion and caring) is unlikely to be furthering the kingdom of God through these professions. A full understanding of the creation mandate should extend this further. In certain times and places, faithful obedience to God‘s kingdom values might require that we invest less of our aggregate capital in the production of violent video games

CBR Articles and more in the development of sanitary water facilities for developing countries, less in weapons of mass destruction and more in quality wood products, less in fossil fuels and more in renewable resources.

Under the business model that operates in most corporations today, deciding which product should be produced comes down to assessing which of the products that the company could produce would yield the highest return on investment (ROI). While this is not always easy to calculate (and is often calculated incorrectly), it has the seductive quality of mathematical certainty.19 It does not, however, necessarily lead to operations that accord with kingdom values. Online betting and pornography may yield higher rates of return but are unlikely to lead to human flourishing.

Of course, it is not possible to come up with a particular formula that will clearly dictate which goods or services should be produced. There is no single litmus test. Each of us faithfully listening to God may come up with a different answer. But even if we may end up with different answers, we are called to start by asking a common question: Instead of asking in the first instance, Which choice will maximize my ROI? we ask instead, Given the core competencies of my organization and the assets under its control, how can I best direct the organization to serve? Which products or services could we produce that would best enable my community to flourish?

And this leads to a second observation. Note that nothing in this Genesis model supports the conclusion that business should be operated for the purpose of maximizing profits. In fact, this model turns the dominant business model on its head. In most business schools today and in most corporations (particuJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 33

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Why Business Matters to God larly larger, publicly traded corporations) the sole legitimate purpose of business is said to be maximizing profits for the sake of the shareholders.20 Indeed, influential economists have argued that business managers have a moral obligation to do everything within their power (short of breaking the law and violating conventional norms of society) to maximize profits.21 Under this model, providing meaningful work to employees and being honest and straightforward with customers are good business practices to the extent, and only to the extent, that they enhance the bottom line. In other words employees and customers become a means for achieving the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth.

Under the Genesis model, however,

enterprise itself.22 To turn shareholders‘ needs into a purpose is to be guilty of a logical confusion, to mistake a necessary condition for a sufficient one. We need to eat to live; food is a necessary condition of life. But if we lived mainly to eat, making food a sufficient or sole purpose of life, we would become gross. The purpose of a business, in other words, is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better.23

And one last observation. Sometimes I worry that to suggest that one of the fundamental purposes of business is

The Genesis model views employees and customers as the actual ends of the business. It places profit in a proper perspective. It becomes the means to service rather than the purpose of the enterprise itself. the employees and customers become the actual ends of the business. The business is run for their welfare. Profit is not important as an end in and of itself. Rather, it becomes the means of attracting sufficient capital to allow the business to do what, from God‘s perspective, it is in business to do—that is, to serve its customers and employees.

Of course, this doesn‘t mean that profit is unimportant. Generating profits is critical. ―No margin, no mission.‖ Without profit a business dies. But the Genesis model places profit in a proper perspective. It becomes the means to service rather than the purpose of the

to ―produce goods and services that enable the community to flourish‖ might conjure up some image of a cookie-cutter manufacturing process whereby the same goods are just repetitively stamped out by machines year after year and handed out to customers who come by. But this would be a mistake.

I intend a far more robust understanding. Indeed the Genesis model statement of purpose assigns a very high calling to business. Business is to be in the business of ―value creation‖ or ―creating wealth.‖ Put simply, successful businesses find ways through innovation to make more or better things from less.

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Why Business Matters to God In so doing, business generates the economic capital that sustains the entire society.

At the very heart of capitalism . . . is the creative habit of enterprise.

Enterprise is, in its first moment, the inclination to notice, the habit of discerning, the tendency to discover what other people don‘t yet see. It is also the capacity to act on insight, so as to bring into reality things not before seen. It is the ability to foresee both the needs of others and the combinations of productive factors most adapted to satisfying those needs. This habit of intellect constitutes an important source of wealth in modern society. Organizing such a productive effort, planning its duration in time, making sure that it corresponds in a positive way to the demands it must satisfy, and taking the necessary risks: all this has been a source of new wealth in the past 200 years.24

As Bonnie Wurzbacher, a senior vice president with Coca Cola put it in a recent interview, ―As the sole source of wealth creation in the world, [business] enables every other social, civic and even spiritual institutions [sic] to exist.‖25 In economic terms, all other institutions are funded (through taxes or philanthropic giving) by the wealth first created by business. This can be seen when a new business moves into a community, and is often felt acutely when a business closes or departs.

The call ―to produce goods and services that enable flourishing‖ is a call to participate in this innovative and industrious work. It is a call to constantly be looking for ways to deliver more or better goods and services. In fact, it is the combination of the two purposes I have

identified previously—enabling creative work (innovation) and producing community-flourishing products (productivity)—that really brings businesses‘ unique contribution into sharpest focus.

Conclusion Let‘s finish the parable we started with.

What can we tell our student considering a career in business? In short, we can tell her that she is considering a noble calling that will involve her in delivering on key aspects of God‘s creation mandate. If a Christian lawyer seeks to advance God‘s justice, and a Christian doctor seeks to administer God‘s healing, a Christian businessperson seeks to serve a hurting world by providing it with the material goods and services that will enable it to prosper. The Christian in business enables individuals to express aspects of their God-given identities by affording them the opportunity to participate in meaningful and creative work. In short, the Christian in business is in the business of rendering service that will enable humanity to flourish.  Notes 1

For convenience and flow of argument, I have elected to treat the question of God‘s purpose for institutions as a stand-alone discussion in Chap. 6.

2 I make repeated references throughout this book to the ―kingdom of God,‖ ―God‘s kingdom‖ or words to that effect. By this I mean simply the place or places where God reigns, where God is king. The characteristics of this kingdom are the subject of numerous parables and other biblical teaching. While perhaps not all-encompassing, Paul Stevens identifies four key features of God‘s kingdom: ―First, [the kingdom of God] brings the forgiveness of sins. . . . Second, the kingdom brings healing and recovery of full life: ‗the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.‘ . . .

Third, the kingdom restores community by providing an open table for sharing meals with sinners, with poor and rich. . . . Finally, Jesus deJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 35

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Why Business Matters to God nounced collective, institutional and structural sin . . . especially for the effect it had on the poor and the oppressed‖ (R. Paul Stevens, Doing God’s Business [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], pp. 84-85).

3 See, for example, N. T. Wright, ―How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?‖ NTWrightpage <www .ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authori tative.htm> (creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, church).

4 My choice of this particular approach is also a reflection of my own heritage. I have grown up as a Protestant primarily in evangelical Presbyterian churches. Consciously or otherwise, I‘m sure that I bring a Reformed perspective to this project, hopefully tempered in part by my current happy assignment in a Wesleyan institution.

5 Additional poetic accounts of God‘s creation can be found in the Psalms and are alluded to elsewhere in the Scriptures. Still Genesis 1-2 remains the primary account of God‘s initial work at creation.

6 In this book I make repeated references to ―human flourishing,‖ but this is a difficult concept to reduce to a simple definition. At its heart, a human being flourishes when he or she moves toward becoming more the person God designed him or her to be. As such, this notion has a developmental character. It implies growth and change. Human flourishing also taps into the notion of biblical abundance. Jesus assures his followers that he has come ―that they might have life, and have it to the full‖ (John 10:10). But it is a multidimensional abundance. It includes the spiritual, physical, intellectual, aesthetic, emotional and social aspects of our lives. It does not consist of the mere accumulation of more things—particularly when such accumulation comes at the cost of the development of other human dimensions. On the other hand, it is not merely a spiritual concept. It is not just limited, for example, to the cultivation of the gifts of the Spirit. As I have argued in the text, the material world (and the physical goods derived therefrom) matters to God. Our physical well-being is a part of human flourishing. It is also not a solitary concept. It contextualizes individual well-being within a community. A rich understanding of human flourishing acknowledges that individuals are made for relationships. While it recognizes the value and dignity of each individual, it also affirms that individual development must be grounded in community.

7 Dictionary.com, s.v. ―stewardship,‖ <www.dictionary.reference.com>.

8

In her book Believers in Business, Laura Nash describes her findings based on extensive interviews with evangelical business leaders. She notes that the ― ‗good steward‘ was the most frequently cited metaphor for personal leadership among the group. For these CEOs it implied service, quality, a responsibility to be fiscally productive and a detachment from self-serving motives‖ (Laura Nash, Believers in Business [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994], p.74).

9 There is no need here to enter into the debate as to whether it is best to characterize human beings as co-creators or subcreators. For our purposes it is sufficient to affirm that to be human is to be intrinsically wired for creative work. See the discussion in Stevens, Doing God’s Business, p.

24; and Stephen Bretsen, ―The Creation, the Kingdom of God, and a Theory of the Faithful Corporation,‖ Christian Scholar’s Review 38 (2008): 115-54, 138-39. See also John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, §§13, 113.

10 Of course, this observation has immediate application to business. As I will discuss in much greater detail in Chap. 2, many of the consequences of Adam and Eve‘s unwillingness to accept their limited nature show up in broken aspects of business. Moreover, the institution of business itself is often unwilling to accept a limited role and is tempted instead to exalt itself to God-like status, a consequence that I take up in greater detail in Chap. 6.

11 ― ‗Rejoicing,‘ ‗delighting,‘ and even, as some translations have it, ‗playing‘ in creation characterize God‘s involvement in the cosmos‖ (Loren Wilkinson, ―Christ as Creator and Redeemer,‖ in The Environment and the Christian: What Does the New Testament Say About the Environment? ed. Calvin B. DeWitt [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991], p. 35, commenting on Proverbs 8:27-31).

12 ―So we receive our blessings not from them [other human creatures], but from God, through them. Creatures are only the hands, channels, and means through which God bestows all blessings‖ (Martin Luther, explanation of the First Commandment, ―Large Catechism‖ [1529], in The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore Tappert [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959], p. 368). Luther saw a very close tie between human work and the work of God. ―God Himself will milk the cow through him whose calling it is‖ (quoted in Gordon Preece, ―Work,‖ in The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity, ed. Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997], p. 1126).

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Why Business Matters to God 13

―Between 1950 and 2000, grain land productivity climbed by 160 percent while the area planted in grain expanded only 14 percent. This extraordinary rise in productivity, combined with the modest expansion of cultivated area, enabled farmers to triple the grain harvest over the last half-century. At the same time, the growing demand for animal protein was being satisfied largely by a quintupling of the world fish catch to 95 million tons and a doubling of world beef and mutton production, largely from rangelands.

These gains not only supported a growth in population from 2.5 billion to 6.1 billion, they also raised food consumption per person, shrinking the share who were hungry‖ (Lester R. Brown, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble [New York: W. W. Norton, 2003], p. 131.

14 Isaiah 65:21-22 seems to suggest that work will continue even in the new heavens and the new earth.

15 The notion of the common good has a rich heritage. It shows up in the writings of philosophers down through the ages. It is also one of the central features of Christian, and particularly Catholic, social teaching. In a very simplistic fashion, pursuit of the common good can be understood as making decisions and taking actions that are beneficial to the community as a whole. But as I use the concept in this book I intend a slightly more nuanced understanding. The Catholic religious tradition defines the common good as ―the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment‖ (emphasis added). This definition makes clear that it has both an individual and communal element. ―Historically, a common good is considered to be a human perfection or fulfillment achievable by a community, such that the community‘s members all share it, both as a community and singly, in their persons. A common good then, is neither a mere amalgam of private and particular goods nor is it the good of the whole that disregards the good of its members‖ (Helen Alford and Michael Naughton, Managing as If Faith Mattered [Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 2001], p. 41, emphasis added). According to the catechism of the Catholic Church, the common good concerns the life of all. It consists of three essential elements. First, it respects the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. Specifically, it respects and fosters individual human development. Second, it requires the social well-being and development of

CBR Articles the community as a whole. And finally, it requires the peace and stability needed in order to allow for this personal and collective development.

Simply put, the common good allows for the flourishing of the community and the individuals who make up that community.

16 Here I am siding with Nicholas Wolterstorff in his critique of a neo-Calvinists‘ position that holds that there are certain abiding ―types‖ of social formation—that is that certain institutions are divinely endowed with certain functions in an immutable ontological sense. Wolterstorff argues that ―we must ask how the functions performed are best parceled out among the institutions of society: which should be assigned to different institutions, and which to the same. When we look at the various societies to be found in the course of history, we find certain basic functions regularly performed, but we find them parceled out among institutions in all sorts of different ways. Functions that we assign to one institution may in other societies be assigned to different ones. . . . Is our assignment a good one for us?

That must be our question‖ (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], pp. 62-63).

17 ―Their view of work is that it has both intrinsic and extrinsic meaning and purpose. That is, the particular work someone does, in and of its own right, is of theological value. Work has the larger role of serving greater societal purposes and needs. Discovering that work can be a calling, and finding meaning and purpose in work are often significant motivators that draw businesspeople to the [Faith at Work] movement‖ (David Miller, God at Work [New York: Oxford University Press, 2007], p. 135).

18 From time to time I am challenged to consider a third purpose for business: specifically, that a business exists to ―nurture relationships,‖ to ―foster community‖ or words to that effect. And I am almost persuaded. In our twenty-first-century global economy, business does indeed play a central role in community-building. Many employees spend the majority of their waking hours on the job, so their opportunities for nurturing relationships outside of work are limited. Moreover, much of the work that business does depends on individuals working in teams rather than alone. And technology is increasingly enabling teams to gather in virtual spaces so that online relationships can be cultivated in the work place even between individuals who are geographically dispersed. Consistent with the observations drawn from the Genesis creation account I can July 2012 Christian Business Review 37

Why Business Matters to God also readily affirm that the tasks to be undertaken by business must be grounded in community, flow out of community and be designed for the community‘s common good. Having said this, however, I am ultimately not convinced. If I were asked by a Christian entrepreneur to explain why he should start a new business, it seems sensible and straightforward to explain to him that he should pursue his business because he has a product that can help the world or because he can employ individuals looking for life-giving work.

These purposes fit the character of business activity. Making products and hiring workers are aspects of a business‘s DNA. I would also have no problem telling him that his work must in all cases be respectful of relationships and that he should nurture a healthy work community. But this is different than telling him that he should start a business for the purpose of nurturing relationships or fostering community. Making community-building a first-order purpose of every business stretches the institution of business too far from its fundamental character. This does not mean that healthy work communities are unimportant. They are critical to healthy businesses.

They are just not its reason for being; they don‘t rise to the level of a foundational purpose.

19 Al Erisman, long-time head of research and development in technology and mathematics for the Boeing Company, has argued that while the promise is seductive, achieving this certainty is often not even mathematically possible: ―The second thing we learn from optimization is that these problems are very difficult. No one really knows how to truly solve most nonlinear, time-dependent mathematical optimization problems (which is the nature of the problem as formulated). So we do in practice what any good mathematician would do—we approximate the problem by something we can solve. In practice, what this means is that while it is very difficult to maximize shareholder value subject to constraints over the long term, we can likely be more effective in doing this over the short term. The pressures from Wall Street for short-term results only support the solution to this problem rather than the stated problem. It is generally not the case that a sequence of best solutions for the short term will together lead to the best solution in the long term.

Anyone hiking in the mountains knows that to get to the peak you sometimes have to move lower before climbing higher. Similarly, short-term thinking in business may look good at the moment, but it often has very significant longer-term issues‖ (Al Erisman, ―The New Capitalism?‖

CBR Articles Ethix 66 [2009]: 4-5).

20 Setting my proposed Genesis-stewardship model against the shareholder-maximization model presents the most dramatic contrast. Of course, the shareholder-maximization model is not the only existing option for describing the duty of a corporate manager (and the corresponding purpose of the firm). Since the publication of R. Edward Freeman‘s seminal work Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman, 1984) a competing approach to understanding management‘s responsibilities has been advanced under the heading of ―stakeholder theory.‖ There have been almost as many definitions of this theory as there have been articles written about it, but in general terms this theory assumes that management owes duties not just to shareholders but to other constituent groups that have a stake in the company, typically including at least employees, customers and suppliers.

While this is an overly simplistic statement, in general this theoretical approach calls on management to make decisions in the interests of all stakeholders and to balance competing interests (in one fashion or another). As such this theory would certainly allow for a consideration of the business purposes that I am advocating, although this theory is not without its own theological shortcomings (see Alford and Naughton, Managing as If Faith Mattered, pp. 55-60).

There is no doubt that the stakeholder theory has gained in acceptance since it was first introduced, although the extent of its adoption in practice is difficult to assess for several reasons.

First, management focused simply on increasing shareholder wealth may nonetheless adopt policies and make pronouncements that outwardly appear to be focused on other constituencies. For example, a company might adopt employee-friendly strategies ostensibly to respond to legitimate employee desires but actually do so because it desires to reduce turnover, lower costs and enhance profits. Conversely, management actually operating under a stakeholder framework may nonetheless choose to justify its actions as a means of maximizing shareholder wealth. Management might engage in this obfuscation because claiming benefits for shareholders would allow management to invoke the ―business judgment‖ rule and reduce the chance that it might be the subject of lawsuits alleging violations of its fiduciary duties. Complicating matters further, most articles written about stakeholder theory are theoretical rather than empirical in nature and are tipped heavily (and disproportioJuly 2012 Christian Business Review 38

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Why Business Matters to God nately) in the direction of large public companies (André O. Laplume, Karan Sonpar and Reginald A. Litz, ―Stakeholder Theory: Reviewing a Theory That Moves Us,‖ Journal of Management 34 [2008]: 1152-89, 1160, 1172). In short, it is simply hard to tell how much ground the stakeholder theory has actually gained on the shareholder maximizing model.

21 See, e.g., Milton Friedman, ―The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,‖ New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, pp. 122-26.

22

Chapter 8 contains an in-depth discussion of the importance and role of profit in a company operating under the Genesis model of business purpose which I advocate for in this Chapter.

23 Charles Handy, ―What‘s a Business For?‖ Harvard Business Review 80, no. 12 (2002): 51.

24 Michael Novak, Business as a Calling (New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 120.

25 Telephone interview with Bonnie Wurzbacher reported on Worldview Matters, October 9, 2009 <http://biblicalworldviewmatters.blogspot.com/s earch/label/Bonnie%20Wurzbacher>.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 39

Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

T

he velocity, scope, and magnitude of change in the contemporary world threaten the equilibrium of individuals and the institutions of their engagement, including church, family, education, government, business workplace.

Change is the “new normal,” as Peter Drucker noted at the beginning of the 21st century, when he wrote, "Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes — it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm."1

Velocity is the speed by which the information that ignites change rushes at people in the contemporary world.2 The accumulation of information is the fastest increasing quantity in the world. 3 Researchers at the University of California—Berkeley, examined the total production of all information channels in the

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world for two different years, 2000 and 2003. 4 In 2000, the total production of new information in a 12-month period amounted to 37,000 times the information housed in the Library of Congress.

By 2003, the accumulation of information was growing by 66 percent per year.

The total amount of scientific knowledge has been doubling every 15 years since 1900.

Information alters existing realities, and also creates new phenomena. The velocity of information therefore accelerates change. The Industrial Age shows there are certain periods of mega leaps, when technologies, systems, and processes morph seemingly overnight into radically new forms. An 18th century Wallace Henley is the author and collaborator of over 20 books, including his latest Globequake: Living in the Unshakeable Kingdom While the World Falls Apart (Thomas Nelson, 2012). Journalist, leadership consultant, and former White House aide, Henley is the founder of Headwaters Leadership Institute and Associate Pastor of Houston’s 57,000 member Second Baptist Church. He regularly blogs at www.ChristianPost.com July 2012 Christian Business Review 40

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Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

balloon and the Wright Brothers’ flying machine shared the goal of enabling humans to fly, but the airplane was a leap into a new category.

Information is a primary catalyst of change. No previous historic period has experienced the present velocity of the increase of information; therefore, the contemporary period is unique—up to this point of history. This is why change is the new normal.

The scope of upheaval is worldwide.

Old values are displaced in the quest for new globally “shared” values. Individuals find the traditional belief systems that constituted the foundations of their lives shattered by the often novel alterations of the spiritual, ethical, and social landscapes. Churches that have defined and sustained core values and worldview are shaken by the contemporary transitions.

The vision of families who pass revered truths across generations has been buried in the rubble of a world in turbulence.

Educational philosophies and systems seem to have been blinded in the

The velocity and scope of change impact people in at least three ways. First is the increasing sense of insecurity.

Many people are haunted by vague, unidentifiable anxiety, manufactured within their own turbulent souls. Both the real and imagined threats of the turbulence around us drive us deeply into ourselves in the effort to fend off the gremlins of fear and anxiety. The outcome is what we experience presently: self-absorption resulting in what Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin called the “sensate” stage of a culture, when feelings and emotions govern. 5 The more we view the world through the lens of our own emotions, the greater loom the threats to our security.

If we live in a state of insecurity long enough, after a while we drift into the second phenomenon threatening life balance, insanity. This problem is at epidemic proportions, concluded E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller in their 2002 book, The Invisible Plague.6 From 1955 into the 21st century, many medications had become available, but the number of people diagnosed with mental illness had increased six-fold!7 Instability Insanity

Change

Insecurity

dust of upheaval, and lost their way. The principles that have secured governments have been shattered. Businesses and the workplace have rocked with the turmoil.

Employees are struck with new tensions including concerns over job security and career longevity, as well as balancing the demands of their total lives with the need to cling to their employment.

Insanity is “reason used without root, or reason in the void,” wrote G.K. Chesterton. 8 “The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end.” Cultural, societal, and national insanity occurs when people destroy their roots and forget their first principles. The velocity and scope of change in our time tears out the root-system and brings down July 2012 Christian Business Review 41

Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

the edifice of first principles. That’s why whole societies as well as individuals lose their balance, lapse into insanity and lose their stability.

Instability is the third impact of contemporary upheaval threatening the balance of the human psyche. The devastating destabilization of global redefinition is its impact on the foundations on which all strength and order rest. Chesterton was reflecting the theme asserted in Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and yet the tremors of the present age seek to destabilize the very idea of God. This leads to deconstruction of the concept of humans having inherent dignity because of being made in God’s image. What follows is the loss of the confidence that arises from belief in a transcendent God to whom all are accountable, but also the God who is immanent in space and time, and engaged with His image-bearers and their world.

How, then, does one maintain balance midst the upheaval? The question is especially pertinent as it relates to business and the workplace. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends 16.4 hours of every 24 working or sleeping. 9 The rest of the available hours must be allotted to many other tasks—caring for others, household activities, leisure and sports, eating and drinking. Imbalance arises as the demands of the urgent displace the essentials for equilibrium in the individual’s life.

We can group these essentials into three categories: 1. the need for the “otherness” of transcendence; 2. the need for linking transcendence on the immanent scale of the self; 3. the need for a clear philosophy of time and its use.

CBR Articles Understood and applied properly these three elements comprise a proverbial “three-legged stool” on which one can rest in confidence because of its balance and stability.

One of the distortions of contemporary culture is blurring the boundaries between the transcendent and the immanent. In an age of self-absorption people increasingly worship on the horizontal level. They lose the sense of a God who is wholly other, external to themselves and their worlds. Such an attitude cuts off two legs from the stool, which becomes incapable of offering balance and rest.

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” asks the Psalmist, rhetorically (Psalm 11:3 (NASB)). His thought is drawn immediately to transcendence, and the writer answers his own question through awareness and focus on the Most High God: “The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven…”

(Psalm 11:4). God’s throne symbolizes His serene steadiness, His immovable authority, and the potential for all under the rule and protection of that throne to enter its peace, even midst thundering upheaval. Balance begins by resting oneself on the immutability of God. This requires linking transcendent reality with immanent experience. Thus the Psalmist also writes, My soul waits in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.

(Psalm 62:1-2)

One of the characteristics of our time is an aversion to waiting and silence, especially in the West. Many are under compulsion to push ahead in lines, to July 2012 Christian Business Review 42

Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

dash under changing traffic lights, to speed toward destinations. We have been conditioned to be uncomfortable with silence in a culture that has gone from static-charged radio music to elevator music, to blaring television in doctor’s and dentist’s waiting rooms, to boom boxes, I-Pods, and scores of other media delivering a constancy of noise.

Our penchant for noise has come at a great cost. It has robbed us of the beauty of silence in which we can hear the “still, small voice” of God. The disappearance of silence has taken away the connection on the immanent scale of the soul with the transcendent. The loss of that connection impairs our balance, and its recovery is essential for the restoration of our personal equilibrium.

This requires an understanding of the

CBR Articles nature of time and managing it effectively. The Greek New Testament presents two levels of time:  Chronos expresses time on the existential plane. It is the ticking of the clock, the passing of the calendar. It is wholly linear, with a point of beginning and termination. It is a metric, enabling us to measure the segments of our days and lifetimes.  Kairos is the “opportune time,” the content of chronos. If linear chronos is the track, then kairos is the train, moving along the track on his spinning wheels. Therefore, kairos has a cyclical motion.

The biblical view of time therefore synthesizes Western linearity with Oriental cyclical movement.

Kairos are opportune moments that unveil the eternal, disclosing God’s ultimate purposes within the long sweep of time July 2012 Christian Business Review 43

Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

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And we lose our equilibrium when Life-balance requires that one get we neglect the wholeness of time, extime in balance. There must be opportupressed in the chronos-kairos linkage. It nity along the linear sequence for the is the recognition of and participation in recognition of the presence and impact of the rhythm of time that can bring our the kairotic. One must reflect and conwhole being into balance. “Remember sider the events and circumstances travthe Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” says the eling along the “tracks” and their deeper Commandment. That is, there must be meanings, significance, lessons, and specific regularity in principles.

This the linear flow of our calls for a rhythm of time sequencing Life balance requires routines when we pause, and engage that allows for us to engage in a with God, the tranregular meditation, inward evaluation, rhythm that allows for scendent One. We must thrust our souls and outward and inward evaluation, and outward from the upward focus. self and the horiSuch balance outward and upward zontal, and open comes as we confocus ourselves to the template our own kairos of God that nature as God’s gives us meaning image-bearers. He and purpose. is triune—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—and we are triune—spirit, soul, body. Paul Ben Young says he was impacted by prays that “the God of peace Himself insights from Lauren Winner, an Orthosanctify you entirely; and may your spirit dox Jew who became an evangelical and soul and body be preserved comChristian. She said that what she missed plete, without blame at the coming of our from her routine as a practicing Jew was Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians the Sabbath observance, “a cessation 5:23) from the rhythm of work and world, a The body is that dimension of our time wholly set apart, and, perhaps above being created for interaction with the all, a sense that the point of Shabbat, the external world, on the horizontal plane. orientation of Shabbat, is toward God.” The soul—the psuche, from which we get Young agrees. Modern humanity is “psyche” and its family of words—is the missing something through its loss of the facet of our whole person capable of inSabbath concept, and “we are missing it trospection and self-awareness. Our spirit because we don’t understand what we is made for interaction with transcendent have lost.”10 Being. We are “preserved complete” The promise attached to the Sabbath when there is a balance in our personal Command is that we will find “rest” lives between spirit, soul, and body. Imprecisely because of the balance, and balance occurs when we lop off “legs” resulting peace and confidence that from the “stool” and try to stand on the comes from living in the wholeness for “body” alone, or cast all our weight on which God designed us. Jesus Christ the “soul,” or fail to link the “spirit” with freed us from a rigid conformity to the the other parts of our being.

Law as the means of salvation, but He did not set aside the overarching principles July 2012 Christian Business Review 44

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Life Balance in Vortex of Changes

God’s “way” provides for healthy, balanced living.

Balancing the demands of life and work necessitates, as Chesterton said, beginning with “first principles,” and that means recognizing how we are made and how we relate to the time God has given us. 

Notes 1

Peter Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, New York: Harper Business, 1999.

2 Material used here relating to velocity, scope, and magnitude is drawn from the author’s book: Wallace Henley, Globequake: Living in the Unshakeable Kingdom while the world falls apart, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, July, 2012.

3

“The Speed of Information,” The Technium, 2006. Retrieved from: http://www.kk.org/ thetechnium/archives/2006/02/ the_speed_of_in.php.

4 Ibid.

5 Pitirim Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics, Transaction Publishers, 1985, 622-623.

6 E. Torrey Fuller and Judy Miller, The Invisible Plague, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

7 “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” Robert Whitaker, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 7, Number 1, Spring, 2005.

8 G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. Published originally in 1908, with numerous subsequent editions.

9 “Time use on an average workday for employed persons ages 25 to 54 with children.” Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts.

10 Ben Young & Dr. Samuel Adams, Out of Control: Finding Peace for Physically Exhausted and Spiritually Strung Out, Nashville: Nelson Books/Thomas Nelson, 2006, 65.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 45

Transferrable Skills

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How believers’ professional skills and knowledge can be used to build up the church and their own spiritual lives.

By Dru Stevenson

M

uch of the discussion of “Christianity in Business” focuses, quite naturally, on how a Christian businessperson’s faith can influence one’s secular work – in the way we treat others, the ways we conceive and execute our business mission, and the way we make our faith known to others. Less attention goes to the intricate relationship between the successful businessperson’s secular work and involvement in spiritual Dru Stevenson is professor of law and Helen and Harry Hutchins Research Professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas. A graduate of Wheaton College (B.A., Biblical Studies), the University of Connecticut (J.D.), and Yale University (LL.M.), he served in full-time ministry before becoming an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut. His writings cover criminal law to civil procedure, with an emphasis on the intersection of law with economics and linguistic theory.

activities and events, like church. Our secular enterprise is part of who we are, part of the person God loves, redeems, sanctifies, and uses to do His work. Not only should our faith impact our work life, but our work identity can positively impact our spiritual pursuits.

Transferrable Skills and the Body of Christ Most evangelical Christians in business are members of a church. For many, unfortunately, their involvement stops there – successful people are usually busy people, and often feel too busy to be “involved” in their church. Even those who are devout enough to attend, give, and appreciate the services often leave the work of organizing and leading to the church staff and leadership.

This essay presents a dual challenge to Christian businesspersons and to the leadership of their churches, as both have July 2012 Christian Business Review 46

Transferrable Skills

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marketer more effective, and vice-versa. a role to play in helping professionals in The best managers often are those who the congregation better integrate their know how to do the jobs of the workers spiritual and secular lives. For the Christhey supervise. tian in business, it may require a greater The same is true when we enter a commitment of time – and perhaps a church. Churches and religious organimore proactive approach to one’s faith – zations desperately need input from in order to achieve the goal described people who understand accounting, or below. For the leaders, there may be a who are experienced builders, or who need to break from the norm and take an grasp insurance concepts, or who underinnovative approach to utilizing the skills stand liability and and talents of the risk management. believers in their Every skill, ability, flocks.

“Instead of thinking of or talent of a Yet the New church members as a member is part of Testament the intangible presents a very walking coupon for profeswealth of a church, different model sional services, church just as the aggrefor the church. gate skills, knowAll the members leaders should include ledge, and expeintegrate and them in the affairs and derience of emsynergize as ployees are part of “living stones” cisions in the church so the assets or comprising a that each individual can wealth of a corpo“spiritual house” ration.

(1 Peter 2:5 positively influence the inPastors and (NIV)). Each buministry staff often sinessperson in a stitutional culture and have little training congregation practices.” in finance, insurbrings a unique ance, IT, risk set of expemanagement, or riences, talents, legal issues. They rely on advice for these perspectives, and skills related to their matters either from minimally educated secular employment outside of church. support staff, or from expensive outside Many of these traits and abilities are consultants and contractors (who know transferrable skills that are incredibly they are dealing with unsophisticated useful in furthering the work of the minclients). Overlooked are the people in the istry. pews who have relevant knowledge or Transferrable skills are a common skills. topic in the secular workforce. Workers The modern model of the church and prospective employers are very tends to ignore this fact, instead imposing aware that skills, knowledge, and expean unhealthy dichotomy between “God’s rience acquired in one job can be useful work” and secular work. This dualistic in the next job, even in another industry. thinking results in leaders who view Experience as a delivery driver can make members as clients/customers – people one a better dispatcher; experience in who come to receive what the church procurements can make a salesperson or July 2012 Christian Business Review 47

Transferrable Skills offers, and who tithe in exchange for what they receive.

Worse, the instances where ministers approach professionals in the congregation for help often border on inappropriateness, such as trying to squeeze free legal advice from a lawyer in the congregation, either for the church’s litigation or for another member’s legal problems, or imposing on a mechanic in the congregation to work on the pastors’ son’s car. For free.

Instead of thinking of church members as a walking coupon for professional services, church leaders should include them in the affairs and decisions in the church so that each individual can positively influence the institutional culture and practices. Unfortunately, church leaders may not grasp the concept of transferrable skills. They expect the lawyer-member to be useful when there is a legal problem, but are unaware that lawyers usually have a sophisticated understanding of insurance concepts, negotiation practices, mediating disputes, or that lawyers are highly trained in extemporaneous public speaking and formal writing.

Ministers may not fully understand that insurance agents in their church know a lot about social and family networks, how people make major decisions, the best time of day to contact people, and what types of consequences result from making exceptions to established policies – all of which are very important for the tasks that churches and ministries undertake. Instead, they naively hope that a computer network specialist will be able to fix the bugs in the PowerPoint presentations used on Sunday – because the member “works with computers.”

Overlooked is the network specialist’s unique ability to plan and schedule in advance for staggered upgrades,

CBR Articles phased-in purchases, and ever-changing norms about privacy, accessibility, and security; again, issues that come up in seemingly unrelated domains of ministry work.

Change must come from the ground up. It is incumbent on the businessperson in the pew, therefore, to step forward, to take initiative, to sacrifice the time it takes to get involved. A major asset of religious organizations currently goes unused, essentially dormant.

As mentioned in the introduction to this essay, the challenge here is twofold.

Church leaders may need to change the way they think about the businesspersons and professionals who attend their churches, to foster better integration of their members’ lives and skills. At the same time, members will often need to be proactive in offering their services and finding ways to serve. It could revolutionize many ministries, churches, and denominations if we could release the treasure-trove of knowledge capital among the membership.

These traits must operate in tandem with the member’s spirituality. Many intangible spiritual characteristics affect how “effective and productive” we are in our faith activities (2 Peter 1:8): spiritual gifts, anointing, Christian character/virtue, prayer life, depth of faith, and knowledge of the Bible are all factors that contribute to our spiritual fruitfulness.

Yet most Christians hear plenty of teaching on these points, without any word about how to integrate the rest of our personality and identity with our spirituality. Many believers simply dichotomize in their minds, and assume that nothing from their life outside of church is relevant once they enter the sanctuary.

Peter and Paul provide examples of this integration of life within the community of Christ, and the “outside” world.

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Transferrable Skills Peter was, of course, a fisherman – probably with little formal education – before he found himself thrust into the top leadership of the early church. Most believers have heard the oft-repeated idea that Peter illustrates God’s sense of irony, in that Jesus picked seemingly unqualified (unsophisticated) people to groom as Apostles. Acts 4:13 recounts the religious leaders of the day making a similar observation about them. Many believers today see Peter as an illustration of the promise, “God’s power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The reality is more complicated. We glean from the gospel narratives glimpses of Peter’s work life. He and his brother Andrew were not anglers – they caught tilapia and other lake fish in nets cast from the side of small boats. It was incredibly uneven work, with long frustrating periods of catching nothing, punctuated by large catches of hundreds of fish at once. The unpredictable large catches required Peter and his three partners to spring into action quickly, to coordinate their motions, to exert full physical strength in a frenzy, then to get the fish ashore and to market while still fresh. Along the way, they had to sort the fish. During lulls, they attended to the tedious work of mending the nets. This was a lifestyle that spanned decades. Galilean fishers grew accustomed to spurts and lulls in activity, doing well in emergency/crisis situations (a full net) and making effective use of the downtime to prepare for the next round of catching, hauling, and sorting fish. Month after month, year after year.

Now consider the first ten years of the church in Jerusalem. In one day, it exploded from 120 members huddled in an all-night prayer meeting to 3,000 new adherents (see Acts 2:38-47). Then there seems to have been a respite, then another

CBR Articles surge that brings the number to 5,000 (Acts 4:4). There was no professional staff, no church facilities, no Christian curriculum for small groups or Sunday School. Somehow, the Apostles managed to sort people overnight into small, manageable meetings in homes, organize large public teaching events for full audiences, arrange for meals to be provided to (apparently dozens of) widows, and accommodate hundreds of people requesting prayer for their infirmities and other personal problems. Then there would be a lull, then another round of crisis mode. Retention of new converts seems to have been much higher than we see today.

Assuming that Jesus foresaw this rollercoaster phase of the early church, his selection of the launch team now seems strategic instead of ironic. The first church leaders had to be able to respond rapidly, had to stay focused on not losing anyone from the latest “catch,” had to work together well, and had to make effective use of downtime between the waves of influx. The religious culture of first-century Jerusalem would instead have picked leaders based on seniority, sagacity, family name, and patronage.

Yet the apostles succeeded at rapid-response ministry work, crowd management, and retention. They successfully managed a mega church without buildings, staff, sound systems, media, or spreadsheets. This gives deeper meaning to Jesus’ prediction to Peter, Andrew, James, and John that He could turn them into “fishers of men.” Lake fishers were perfect for the job in Jerusalem, it turned out.

Phase Two of the early church was the shift from being an obscure localized phenomenon to being an international organization. This meant jumping a cultural barrier – from Aramaic-speaking July 2012 Christian Business Review 49

Transferrable Skills Jewish converts to Greek-speaking pagans throughout the Roman Empire.

Someone would need to cover huge distances, pitch the message to polytheistic Gentiles (instead of Jews already expecting a Messiah), and organize cells that would be self-replicating and self-sustaining. The task fell to Saul (Paul), an ultra-orthodox Rabbi who had led a vigilante effort against the first Christians in and around Jerusalem. This choice seems as ironic as Peter running things in Jerusalem: a super-strict rabbi is going to remove the Jewishness from the faith enough to have pagans embrace it.

Again, there was a strategic advantage beneath the apparent irony.

Paul, though tutored for years under premier rabbis in Jerusalem, had been born in a Roman colonial city called Tarsus (in modern Turkey). Anyone born there had Roman citizenship – as if they had been born in the city of Rome itself – analogous to American citizenship conferred on babies born on U.S. military bases overseas. Paul was probably the only rabbi in Jerusalem who could travel freely throughout the Roman Empire with special legal rights and protections.

Childhood in Tarsus would have made Paul fluent in Greek and some local dialects. Paul had first-hand experience in Jewish synagogues functioning far from the homeland, as branches in remote locations. His reputation as a stickler for kosher rules and traditions gave him gravitas when insisting that those rules and rituals were unnecessary for Gentile converts. He was single, which made constant travel much more feasible. Finally, Paul had a purely secular skill – tent-making – that enabled him to support himself in any urban center he visited while he planted a church there; he did not need to depend on the members of the

CBR Articles new church for his livelihood. These traits turned out to be incredibly helpful.

Ending the Compartmentalization of Our Spiritual Lives Unfortunately, many believers tend to separate their spiritual lives from their secular routines. Helping believers bring their faith into their work is essential in breaking down this mental compartmentalization – we must be actively Christian everywhere we go, in everything we do.

Many other writers have made this point.

Less common, however, is the observation that bringing our secular lives into our spiritual activities also breaks down the unhealthy compartmentalization. Our “secular” abilities and talents are resources within the local and global church. Learning to deploy our skills and abilities in faith-based endeavors makes it easier for us to “walk in the Spirit” even when we are using those skills at our workplace. Believers become integrated individuals who see God permeating every area of their lives, rather than churchgoers who have a spiritual side and a worldly side.

The concept of transferrable skills may prompt some Christian businesspersons to rethink the question of where to attend church. We can think strategically about advancing God’s purposes.

Many factors weigh into the decision about which local church to join: geographic proximity, doctrinal beliefs, worship style, preaching quality, etc.

These are valid considerations, but an additional dimension merits discussion.

Conclusion It is wonderful to see so many Christians today thinking about how to bring their faith into their work. They are learning to live out their Christianity in practical ways by treating coworkers honorably, July 2012 Christian Business Review 50

Transferrable Skills being exemplary in integrity and transparency, and trying to be more altruistic, “doing good while doing well.”

The other side of the equation, however, is to bring more of our work into our faith activities. Instead of dichotomizing our spiritual and secular pursuits, we should recognize that God sees us as an integrated person, a person whose career gives us special insights into Christian faith, practice, and outreach. We all acquire transferrable skills in our jobs, and these are useful not only for our future career, but for our efforts to serve God and spread His Word as well.

In John 17:6, as Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, he thanks the Father for his disciples: I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.

There is a deep mystery contained in these words – disciples are a gift that the Father gives to his Son. Salvation as

CBR Articles God’s free gift to us should be perfectly familiar to believers; but perhapswe need to add to that belief the idea that each of us is a gift from the Father to Jesus, intended to be an asset to his work. In verse 4, Jesus says that the Father entrusted the Son with a mission, a “work to do” in this world – the project of salvation. Toward this end, the Father gives the Son a gift, dedicated followers who will serve him and further the work.

Suppose that as an expression of the perfect, eternal love between the Father and the Son, the Father gave His Son a gift. We would assume that such a gift would be wonderful, eternally valuable, and quite significant. That gift was you and me.

It may be appropriate to think of ourselves as helpless, and even passive, when we contemplate the forgiveness we receive for our sins. Yet in terms of the “other” gift involved in our salvation – the gift from the Father to the Son – we are the handpicked members of his dream team, a task force carefully selected to bring the work of Jesus toward the fulfillment of its goals and objectives. 

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Resilience

“In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider — God has made the one as well as the other, so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.” - Ecclesiastes 7:14 (NASB)

A

dversity is a fact of life. While occasional mishaps in the course of life or business are usually well tolerated by the afflicted, severe and unpredicted perturbations could threaten the very sustainability of the productive functioning of organizations or individuals (Christians included) on otherwise smooth paths of success.

Given the random nature of severe disturbances, preparedness is often ineffective and costly to implement. Rather the ability to return expeditiously to a functioning state of equilibrium is strongly related to the notion of balance or stability. Individuals exhibiting balance, physically, psychologically, and spiritually, define stable families, organizations, and communities in the

CBR Articles

face of shock and turbulence. They build resilient entities.1 Resilience is a concept that has received much attention from researchers in a wide variety of disciplines since the turn of the new millennium. At the individual level, the concept refers to the human capacity to deal with and overcome the adversities of life.2 A broader interpretation that applies to entire institutions and organization systems is offered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which defines resilience as “the ability of systems, infrastructures, government, business and citizenry to resist, absorb, recover from, or adapt to an adverse occurrence ... of national significance.”3 The ability to deal with and triumph over unexpected disturbances in life is obviously important in maintaining the mental and physical health of anyone who experiences life’s inevitable adversities. Similarly an organization’s or a corporate entity’s ability to adjust and thrive in the face of serious challenges

Ernest P. Liang is Director of the Center for Christianity in Business and Associate Professor of Finance at Houston Baptist University. Prior to his academic career, he spent 25 years as a finance executive in firms ranging from technology start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, as chief economist of an economic consultancy, and as a principal of an advisory for middle market transactions and executive recruitment. Trained as an economist but practiced as a finance professional, he holds a Ph.D. and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 52

Resilience

CBR Articles

defines its financial health or survivabilreact positively to mishaps, but also the ity in the competitive marketplace. In wisdom to make principled choices that addition, since actions and interactions transform accepted practices and behaamong organizational members underpin viors. Indeed the capability to self-renew the entity’s collective capacity for effecover time through innovation is a key tive response, the resilience of an organaspect of resilience in organizational ization or a firm is characterized by that strategic management.6 of its individual members.

Under challenging and desperate The surge in interest in the concept conditions, the animal spirits in us would of resilience has been a response to a render impotent the self-will to persist cascade of events that are by nature rare, and adapt, let alone to thrive and renew. unpredictable, yet cataclysmically conTherefore it is not surprising to learn that sequential. “Black swans,” as mathemaresearchers across disciplines have identician Nassim Taleb would refer to these unpleasant, hugely disruptive surprises. 4 The AIDS Research shows faith and epidemic, 9/11 attack, SARS outbreak, subprime financial crispirituality to be a key sis, Haiti earthquake, Japan tsunami, and the ongoing European contributor to resilience sovereign debt crisis are all examples of sudden, intractable turbulences that test the resitified faith and spirituality as a key conlience of individuals, families, entire tributor to resilience.7 For the Christian, communities, and indeed, the global the transcendent purpose of life is not economy because of their contagious anchored in the transient and the denature in an integrated, complexly netstructible, but in the eternal promise of worked new world order.

Creator God who is our refuge and The exposure to risks, particularly strength (Psalm 46:1), and from whom low probability but high consequence we receive the strength to overcome risks (what statisticians call “tail risks”), (Philippians 4:13) all sufferings that pale is necessary in determining the capacity in comparison with the future glory for resilience. Risks that recur with sufawaiting believers (Romans 8:18). Jesus ficient frequency are better managed. himself assures his followers that “in the Risks that are rare and cause certainty of world you have tribulation, but take significant loss could induce irrational courage, I have overcome the world” responses.

(John 16:33).

The works of Nobel laureate Daniel The Apostle Paul reminds believers Kahneman and Amos Tversky suggest that the secret to triumphant living under that, when faced with the prospect of these promises is to be transformed by certain loss, people will choose to gamble the constant renewing of our mind (Roon the slight probability of gain and not mans 12:2), giving the Holy Spirit the focus on the greater probability of loss, dominion over our will and action instead often exacerbating the adverse outcome of the animal spirit. Pastor and leadership when disruptions strike. 5 Resilience expert Wallace Henley, commenting on therefore not only requires the capacity to the global turbulences that engulfed July 2012 Christian Business Review 53

CBR Articles

Resilience much of the world in recent years, writes, “there is much travail and panic as people look at the devastation the turbulence has brought to individuals, homes…and businesses. But men and women who have a biblically based worldview know there is immense opportunity for transforming all these spheres by reestablishing them on the rock-solid truths and principles of the kingdom of God.”8 Christians who believe in God’s trustworthiness live a life suffused with a strong sense of moral purpose, core value, and vision. At the organizational level, especially for small and medium size businesses where individual leadership and small group dynamics strongly influence enterprise adaptiveness and flexibility, these become the critical success factors for the creation of organizational resilience.9 Researchers have also identified several contextual conditions that support

resilience with particular implications at the group and organization levels. 10 These conditions include:  psychological safety, where people perceive their personal or work environments as conducive to taking interpersonal risks – risks of being ignored, rejected, or ridiculed;  deep social capital, where interactions are rooted in trust, honesty, and self-respect;  diffused power and accountability, where a strong sense of interdependence, individual and group accountability, and shared goal governs the decision-making process; and  accessibility of broad resource network, where relationships with external sources of resources can be readily and stra-

How Christian Virtues Support Contextual Conditions for Organizational Resilience Psychological Safety

Deep Social Capital

Diffused Power and Accountability

Accessibility of Resource Network

Acceptance

Integrity

Accountability

Brotherhood

Respect

Loyalty

Interdependence

Love / Share

July 2012 Christian Business Review 54

Resilience

CBR Articles

greatest servant.”12 In all these there is a shared purpose, to build up the body of Christ so that all become mature and attain the fullness in the knowledge of God While secular entities work hard to (Ephesians 4:12-16). design and cultivate these infrastructures and modes of behavior, it appears the A balanced life for a Christian is a community of genuine Christ followers is life in harmony with God’s will, knowing naturally positioned to function within that the one who has created us will althese contexts. Whether in the family unit ways answer and revive us when in or within a community, the psychological trouble (Psalms 86:7, 138:7), and that we aspects of relational Christianity are can do all things through Him who rooted in the virtues of humility, gentlestrengthens us (Philippians 4:13). A baness and patience (Ephesians 4:2). The lanced individual or community of indidictates of Christian conduct, in harmony viduals trusting in the same divine source with God’s will, are vividly illustrated by of strength and striving toward the same Romans 12, 11 moral purpose is the mooring of orwhere acceptance ganization, institu(v. 16), respect A balanced individtion and system (v.10), integrity (v. resilience.

9), loyalty (v.10), ual or community of Entities under accountability (v.

Christian leader6), and interdeindividuals is the ship or amenable to pendence (v. 5) are mooring of organithe influence of the requisites of Christian beliefs healthful relations. zation, institution should nurture In such a gevalues, cultivate nuine community and system resinetworks, and build of brotherly love, infrastructures that where the believer lience. harness the strength is to serve the of biblical ethics in community before every layer of the his/her own interlocal community. Even in entities that are est, a trusted network of external renot, the Christ follower needs to be the sources is readily available to the dessalt and light, influencing the larger pondent when disasters strike. Gene community by being a true testimony for Getz, writing in Building Up One resilience in a world that would despeAnother, summarizes Paul’s teaching rately search for balance and stability about unity this way: “Not one of us can when maelstrom strikes.  function effectively by ourselves; we need each other. Not one of us is more important than any other Christian, even though one of us may have a more obvious or more significant position in the body. We are to be clothed with humility, remembering that even the one who has the greatest responsibility is to be the tegically deployed to support adaptive initiatives.

July 2012 Christian Business Review 55

CBR Articles

Resilience Notes 1

Denis Smith and Moira Fischbacher, “Changing nature of risk and risk management,” Risk Management 11 (2009), 1-12.

2 Suniya S. Luthar and Laurel Bidwell Zelazo, “Research on resilience: An integrative review,” in Resilience and Vulnerability: Adaptation in the Context of Childhood Adversities, by Suniyar S. Luthar (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 513.

3 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Risk Steering Committee, Risk Lexicon (2008), 23.

4 Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (New York: Random House, 2007).

5 Kahneman and Tversky’s work (“Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk,” Econometrica 47 (1979), 263-291), has wide applications in business and finance. It explains why investors have loss aversion (i.e., hanging onto loss positions in hope of a recovery which may never come, thus ending up with under-diversified portfolios) and why firms or policy makers have myopic focus when dealing with failed products, projects, or policies. The misguided response often results in prolonging the adverse outcome and seeding more pronounced future risks. A good case in point is the ongoing European credit crisis which exploded as a result of the long neglect by national leaders of destabilizing fiscal deficits and public sector indebtedness.

6 Patrick Reinmoeller and Nicole van Baardwijk, “The link between diversity and resilience,” MIT Sloan Management Review 46(4) (summer 2005), 61.

7

See, for example, David Bosworth, “Faith and resilience: King David’s reaction to the death of Bathsheba’s firstborn,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73 (2011), 691-707; Helen Herrman et al., “What is resilience,” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 56(5) (2011), 258-65; Cynthia A. Lengnick-Hall, Tammy E. Beck, and Mark L. Lengnick-Hall, “Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management,” Human Resources Management Review 21 (2011), 243-55; and Kenneth I. Pargament and Jeremy P. Cummings, “Anchored by faith: Religion as a resilience factor,” in J.W. Reich et.al., Handbook of Adult Resilience (New York: Guilford Press, 2010), 193-210.

8 Wallace Henley, Globequake: Living in the Unshakeable Kingdom While the World Falls Apart (Nashville, TN.: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 69.

9 Steven F. Freeman, L. Hirschhorn, and M. Maltz, “Organizational resilience and moral purpose: Sandler O’Neill & Partners, L.P. in the aftermath of September 11, 2001,” University of Pennsylvania Center for Organizational Dynamics Working Paper (2004).

10 Lengnick-Hall et. al., “Organizational resilience,” 247.

11 See also related themes in 1 Corinthians 12:12-37 and Ephesians 4.

12 Gene A. Getz, Building Up One Another (Wheaton, IL.: Victor Books, 1976), 11-12.

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Contributor Guidelines

CBR Guidelines for Authors Review Process Each proposal or paper is reviewed by one of CBRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s editors and, if it is judged suitable for this publication, is then further evaluated: experience-based papers by the Editorial Board; and research-based papers by at least one independent referee for double-blind peer review in addition to the Editorial Board. Based on their recommendation, the editors then decide whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised or rejected.

General Purpose and Style As an academic journal the CBR adheres to high scholarly standards. As a publication for business professionals, the CBR emphasizes the practicality of ideas in the real world of business. In either case, however, the core message must convey biblical perspectives based on a proper interpretation of the Scripture with due regard for exegetical and hermeneutic principles.

The CBR covers a wide range of topics and is open to many approaches. For full-length articles the contributors must indicate thorough research of existing academic literature on the subject matter and offer a clear advance on the understanding of biblical integration. They may focus on any of the business disciplines, including such areas as leadership, ethics, organizational change, strategy, people management, marketing, economics, accounting and finance. Articles for the Living Cases, Insights and Book Reviews departments are typically shorter. These contributions should appeal to a broad audience and be written in a fluid, non-technical prose.

Copyright Articles submitted to the journal should not have been published before in their current or substantially similar form, or be under consideration for publication with another journal.

Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher against any breach of such warranty. For ease of dissemination and to ensure proper policing of use, papers and contributions become the legal copyright of the publisher unless otherwise agreed. Authors continue to own the underlying ideas in the article.

Permissions Prior to article submission, authors should clear permission to use any content that has not been created by them.

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Contributor Guidelines Length. Research-based: 3,000–5,000 words; Experience-based: 1,000-2,500 words Title. A title of not more than eight words should be provided Author. Include a page with the following information:    

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July 2012 Christian Business Review 58

Contributor Guidelines Currency. Since the CBR is a journal, its articles should address matters of current importance. When the subject matter is one of the "perennial questions," the author should do more than repeat what has been said already in places that are readily accessible to other scholars.

Biblical perspective. The author may assume that his or her readers are generally familiar with, and sympathetic to, the biblical worldview. The guiding principles of the CBR are steeped in the evangelical and Protestant doctrines; its editorial policy, however, is ecumenical.

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