Soundbites

Doing the math for Office Space ministry

Whether it’s in our neighborhoods, at the office or around the world, the mission of The Church really matters.

All of these “spaces” are invaluable places to trade in the pursuit of the American dream for a world that desperately needs Christ.

But the Office Space is particularly important because it’s the space where people spend most of their time and it’s the space where “professional ministers” have the least direct contact and impact.

Let’s assume the average work week is 40 hours. Let’s also say the average amount of time a person in the work force spends on churchsponsored ministry activities is around three hours a week. That adds up to about 156 hours, compared to the 2,080 hours they’ll spend in their “office space” over the next 12 months.

That means that in one year we’ll have more than a dozen times as many opportunities for ministry in the office space.

Nobody is calling for a stop to “regular” ministry activities. But the greatest strategic opportunity exists beyond the walls of any building or formal program.

There’s so much untapped potential. We haven’t even begun to scratch the ceiling of how far the Christian movement can go if we start embracing work as an opportunity for worship. — Justin Forman, Business as Mission Network

Bank on this

The community as a whole demands of the banker that he shall be an honest observer of conditions about him, that he shall make constant and careful study of those conditions, financial, economic, social and political, and that he shall have a wide vision over them all. — Thomas Lamont, head of J.P. Morgan & Co, speaking to colleagues in 1923

Empowered women

Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times.... Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives. And millions of brains have been put to more productive use. Societies that try to resist this trend ... will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated

citizens. — The Economist in its first edition of 2010

Food frontier?

Africa is the final frontier of food. We’re going to need to double food production by 2050. Where’s it going to come from? What country has potential? The water sources in Africa are underutilized. There’s land available for production. Wouldn’t it be a grand irony if the continent now receiving emergency food aid becomes a continent that is helping to feed the world? That’s Africa’s potential. — Former Wall Street Journal reporter Roger Thurow, co-author of Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, in Christianity Today

Now what?

People don’t think enough about how to keep themselves active and excited in retirement. You ask them, “What are you going to do?” and they say, “Well, I’d love to take a trip to Europe.” Okay, now we’ve dealt with one month of your retirement. How are you going to fill up all the days after that? — Rick Robertson, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, in the Globe & Mail

Fishing for change

Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or to teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry. — Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, which trains and supports social entrepreneurs

Preventing abuse

Microfinance has done more to bolster the status of women, and to protect them from abuse, than any laws could accomplish. Capitalism, it turns out, can achieve what charity and good intentions sometimes cannot. — Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Fork it over

You get to vote with your fork three times a day. That’s a lot more votes you have than in any other realm of life. Getting that vote right even once a day makes a difference. — Food guru Michael Pollan in TIME

Down on the farm

Farmers are the original environmentalists. Telling a farmer to take care of the land is like telling the ice cream man to keep his freezer plugged in. — Texas cotton producer Wally Darneille, quoted in The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy