Next time you’re tempted to complain about your work, praise God for it instead. Next time you open your mouth to gossip about people you work with or smear those you work for, stop yourself and turn ...
The award-winning and now venerable filmmaker Wim Wenders recently put out a new movie called “Perfect Days.” It was filmed in Japan and follows the daily life of Hirayama, a cleaner of public t...
Proverbs 11:2, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 138:6
Frank Buchman, an American Lutheran who founded the First Century Christian Fellowship in 1921, later renamed the Oxford Group in 1928, was known for his belief in divine guidance. One evening, Presid...
In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...
Hebrews 11:39-40, Jeremiah 1:5, Philippians 3:14, Galatians 6:9, Matthew 25:21
In his landmark work, Habits of the Heart, the sociologist Robert Bellah describes thee distinct orientations people take with respect to their work. The first orientation is to see your work as a job...
The Messy Middle In his classic work Transitions, author and professor William Bridges shares an excellent anecdote about life in crisis: it can happen at any time and in a myriad of ways. It also de...
As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...
Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Peter 3:8, Colossians 3:12, Romans 14:12
Paradoxically, if we wish to become more aware of others and their concerns, there is perhaps no better work we can do than developing self-awareness. Consider the findings of a team of psychologists ...
Proverbs 22:1, Luke 16:10, Philippians 2:4, Romans 12:10, Psalm 15:2
In his book A Better Way to Think about Business, the late business philosopher Robert Solomon, a student of business jargon, speaks of having been struck by the imagery that peppers many [business] p...
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. On the near side of complexity is simplistic; on the far...
Peter Drucker suggests that we should always sustain two streams of learning and self-improvement. And though he is speaking specifically about work and career, what he says is equally applicable whet...
We all live between two worlds. We are planted here on earth while our hope is in heaven. We are given work to do in temporary soil that, we’re told, has the potential to spring up into unending fruit...
Galatians 6:10, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, Colossians 3:14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 John 4:7-8
Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...
John 17:1, Philippians 4:6, James 5:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Matthew 6:6, Acts 6:4, Mark 1:35
It’s no secret that too many evangelical leaders are captivated more by business culture than biblical culture, spending more time absorbed in strategies and effectiveness and relatively little time i...
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1
Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...
Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin with words of adoration...
Colossians 4:2, Amos 5:24, James 1:5, Philippians 4:6-7, Micah 6:8, Matthew 6:10
Simone Weil, a French philosopher, theologian and activist around the time of World War II, wrote a remarkable essay in which she connects the discipline of schoolwork with that of prayer. She argues ...
Bear one another’s burdens, the Bible says. It is a lesson about pain that we all can agree on. Some of us will not see pain as a gift; some will always accuse God of being unfair for allowing it. But...
Philippians 2:3-8, Colossians 3:23-24, Mark 10:42-45, 1 John 4:19, Luke 10:38-42
The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...
I remember playing a game as a child in which we would bend one knee and grab our foot behind us and then try to race—limping, stumbling and falling over as we struggled across the grass toward a fini...
Leader : Let us go before our God, confessing the ways we have dismissed His plan for internal peace from our lives. Leader : Heavenly Father, we crave rest and seek it everywhere but with You...
Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11
All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...
Exodus 18:13-27, Judges 6:14, Psalm 23:1-3, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 20:25-28
Leadership is not about problems and decisions; it is a profoundly relational enterprise that seeks to motivate people toward a vision that will require significant change and risk on everyone’s part.
Gracious God, too often we believe that our hard work should earn us comfort, conveniences, and control. Too often, we rely on our own abilities to craft and maintain a life independent from You. Forg...
The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given,...
Matthew 6:33, Philippians 3:13-14, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 10:41-42
In my home country, the Netherlands, you still see many large wagon wheels, not on wagons, but as decorations at the entrances of farms or on the walls of restaurants. I have always been fascinated by...
James 4:1, Philippians 2:14, 1 Corinthians 14:33, James 1:5
Conflict in Ministry Have you ever whispered to yourself, “I didn’t sign up for this?” I confess those words have passed through my mind more than once over the years. When I started out in ministry...
The challenge each of these faced in their deconstruction—and what we may face—is walking the tightrope between becoming our own person and honoring our past. In The Homeless Mind , sociologist P...
Hebrews 12:5-11, Proverbs 3:11-12, Psalm 94:12, 1 Timothy 4:7-8, Philippians 3:12-14, Matthew 23:23-24, James 1:22-25, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an...
Matthew 6:31-34, Luke 10:41-42, Philippians 4::6-7, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 3:5-6
Life has become a smorgasbord with an endless array of dishes. And more important still, choice is no longer just a state of mind. Choice has become a value, a priority, a right. To be modern is to be...