From refugee camp to boardroom Mark Sheerin’s two worlds couldn’t be farther apart. Previously he served Sudanese refugees as a Christian aid worker; now he is part owner of a financial planning and wealth management firm in Atlanta, Georgia. “The distance between my two worlds — my former life as an international aid worker, and my current life serving some of the world’s most financially fortunate — seems unbridgeable some days. On other days, the two worlds look more similar than I imagined,” he writes in “Why I left World Vision for finance,” an online feature of Christianity Today. “I used to define my World Vision job as bringing opportunity to the poor so they might thrive. I used to define my new job in finance as providing guidance to people so that they could make the most prudent decisions to meet their goals and leave legacies. Now I describe both my careers in the same way: creating redemptive spaces in a fallen and tangled world.” He gained perspective on the clash after hearing a sermon on Jeremiah 29 where Jewish exiles in Babylon are told to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city.” The Jews were being called to cling to holiness while still embracing the city, and in that seeming contradiction Sheerin found a bridge between two divergent careers. “God calls his people to seek the redemption of particular spaces in each and every context,” he writes. “For the Jewish exiles, this meant living holy lives in a pagan city. For my own life, it meant leaving explicitly Christian ministry and seeking the well‑being of Atlanta by lashing myself to the mast of this city’s ship.” Sheerin now realized that Jesus had come to earth to radically reconcile all things to himself, to redeem institutions, individuals, the realms of justice and law, education, farms, cities, even the world of finance. He says the decision to leave the refugee camp for the boardroom was complicated. “How could I justify trading a vocation of serving the poor for a career among the wealthy? Believing that finance and feeding starving children both amount to good work in God’s eyes still challenges me on my best days. But then I remember Jesus’ mission to conquer sin and its effects in all its forms and in every place. Fighting against economic injustice through World Vision or through a financial planning firm are both mandated by God. Both tasks are valuable, both tasks seek redemption of broken systems and fallen people. Instead of digging wells, my firm walks with widows through the jungle of probate. Instead of sponsoring children, my firm partners with families through difficult, end‑of‑life decisions.” Sheerin adds, “Striving to create a place where the financial industry can be a balm rather than a scourge seems as daunting a task as feeding the hungry in Africa.” The Marketplace May June 2013
4
Spiritual growth — at work Everyone knows the marketplace is a place to utilize our skills and earn a living. Can it also be a place of spiritual growth? Absolutely, say Richard J. Goossen and R. Paul Stevens in their new book, Entrepreneurial Leadership: Finding Your Calling, Making a Difference (InterVarsity, 2013). They offer three ways in which the marketplace is a location for spiritual formation. 1. It’s the place where we show who we really are. “Our inside is revealed by what we do outside, by the way we work, by our relationships with people, by the realities of how we go about doing day to day enterprise.” 2. “The seven deadly sins, seven soul-sapping struggles that include pride, greed, lust, anger, envy, sloth and gluttony are revealed not in quiet times and prayer retreats but in the thick of life, in business meetings, as we struggle over this month’s sales, when we have to deal with an awkward customer or employee. And every soulsapping struggle becomes an opportunity to grow spiritually.” 3. Good work is part of God’s creating and sustaining plan for the world. “We are actually partners with God in our daily work.... This brings a transformative dimension to our daily work. It means that instead of regarding work in the world as a diversion from the spiritual life and from the ‘work of the Lord’ ... we are doing ‘the Lord’s work’ in creating new products and services, engaging in trading and global enrichment, creating new wealth and improving human life.”
