Personal Development on Career

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Balancing Home and Career Gracefully

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Scripture

Proverbs 31:10–31, Genesis 2:15, Nehemiah 4:17–18, Colossians 3:23–24, Luke 10:38–42, Psalm 128:1–2

Contemporary society assumes that we make a choice: one member of a household will be the “homemaker” and the other the “breadwinner” (i.e., in the marketplace generating income to sustain the home). ...

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Author

John Ortberg

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Calling

A calling, which is something I do for God, is replaced by a career, which threatens to become my god. A career is something I choose for myself; a calling is something I receive. A career is somethin...

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Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 8:26-27, John 14:26-27, Psalm 51:10-12

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

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Get the Knowledge

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Muhammed Ali served as a role model to many young people during his boxing career. When one student had the opportunity to question Ali, he asked him whether he should continue his studies in college ...

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Author

Dave Harvey

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The career path for the Christian looks different than for others. We should not be hungry for her own name or unrestrained in our self-promotion. We don’t need to broker our future. The gospel remind...

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Author

Gordon T. Smith

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I can lose my job; I might be released from a position. My career can come to an end when I retire from the organization I work in. But my vocation comes from God; it remains and is not in the end som...

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Don’t Professionalize Pastoral Ministry

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:4, Jeremiah 12:1-3, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, Psalm 42:1-5

Ministers run the awful risk . . . of ceasing to be witnesses to the presence in their own lives — let alone in the lives of the people they are trying to minister to — of a living God who transcends ...

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O God, you are indeed worthy of our

Author

Chip Hardwick

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O God, you are indeed worthy of our praise and worship. Yet we turn away and worship other gods. We find ourselves at the altar of our careers, our financial security, our self-image, our status. We t...

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The Broad Reality of Vocation

Author

Steven Garber

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The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and glo...

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The Three Orientations Towards Work

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

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...

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Growing Deeper in Existing Strengths

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Exodus 18:17-23, Proverbs 9:9, Nehemiah 2:17-18 , Matthew 25:14-30, Philippians 4:11-13, Psalm 90:12

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...

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Doing the Presidency

Author

Steven B. Sample

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Opportunities

In the spring of 1970, when I was twenty-nine, I learned I had won a fellowship from the American Council on Education, which would allow me to serve an administrative internship with Purdue Universit...

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Doing the Work Before the Work

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 24:27, James 1:5, Matthew 7:24-25, Proverbs 21:5, Colossians 3:16-17, Isaiah 40:3-4

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

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Pursuing a Version of Something

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Scripture

John 10:10, Psalm 16:11

There is a lovely book of advice for writers called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, which talks about how much easier it is to pursue a version of something than the real thing. Pressfield say...

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Living in Transition

Author

William Bridges

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I became interested in the subject of transition outer changes around 1970 when I was going through some difficult inner and outer changes. Although I gave up my teaching career because of those chang...

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Pruning Strengthens: A Botanist's View on Pain

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:1-8, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Psalm 119:67-71, Isaiah 48:10

Any experienced gardener has heard of a botanical term called Apical (ah-pick-ul) dominance. In most plants that grow from a central stem, from maple trees to bush peas, whatever branch is at the top ...

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The Power of Hope in Troubled Marriages

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Zechariah 4:10, Genesis 8:1, 1 Kings 18:44 , Matthew 13:31–32, Romans 5:3–5, Psalm 42:11

Ray Johnston, in The Hope Quotient , shares a remarkable insight from a leading psychologist who had spent his career helping deeply troubled married couples rebuild their relationships after yea...

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If Ambiguity Keeps you Up at Night

Author

John C. Maxwell

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 18:13-23, 1 Kings 3:5-12, Esther 4:13-16 , James 1:5, Psalm 25:4-5 , Acts 15:6-21

Ambiguity may keep people up nights, but anyone seeking exquisite simplicity in his or her career ought to look for a non-leadership position. Leaders, by definition, have followers. Followers need di...

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Hidden Figures

Author

Kelley Nikondeha

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Until recently, most Americans didn’t know that women were pivotal to the NASA space program as far back as the 1950s. Their names and accomplishments were lost to the common history we grew up studyi...

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Always Make Sure You Are Aiming at the Right Target

Author

Vance Pitman

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If you were lucky enough to watch the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, you probably remember swimmer Michael Phelps bursting onto the international scene. Phelps won six medals in those ga...

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Justified?

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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There is a television show that has one of those beginnings that stick with you long after you’ve seen it. And it starts like this…A man, dressed like a cowboy enters an ultra sleek Miami club, lookin...

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“They Ain’t Learned You to Hit that Curveball…”

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

The American Baseball player Moe Berg was more than just a great catcher. Berg had received graduate degrees from Princeton University and the Sorbonne in Paris, knew several languages and later serve...

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The Surprising Truth about Habits, Happiness, and Self-Control

Author

Gretchen Rubin

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As a writer, my great interest is human nature, and in particular, the subject of happiness. A few years ago, I noticed a pattern: when people told me about a “before and after” change they’d made tha...

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No Food, No Riot

Author

Charles Duhigg

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I had been in Iraq for about two months when I heard about an officer conducting an impromptu habit modification program in Kufa, a small city ninety miles south of the capital. He was an army major w...

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10 Great Quotes from How to Lead... by Clay Scroggins

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

How to Lead Without Being in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority came out just about a year ago, so for my timing, I'm actually a bit ahead having just finished it. It is really...

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Asking for a Pastor’s Advice? Mostly Not

Author

John C. Knapp

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Despite a widely shared belief that faith should inform ethical decisions at work, a mere 18 of 230 respondents had ever consulted a pastor for advice about a work-related matter. Of these, six were ...

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Better Never than Late

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Like most artists, the Scotsman George Bernard Shaw experienced a lot of rejection early in his career, before he eventually became a celebrated playwright. During this period of struggle, one of his ...

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Healing From the Inside Out

Author

Dave Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:13, Psalm 147:3, James 1:2-4, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 17:14, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Isaiah 41:10

The bad news was that a friend’s leg was severed in a gruesome automobile accident. The good news was that it was surgically reattached. A few months later she asked if I wanted to see her scar. I swa...

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A Rough Start to Ministry

Author

Craig Groeschel

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Pastor Craig Groeschel shares the true story of his “less than promising” career as a pastor. It should serve as a reminder that rejection and criticism are never final, unless we allow them to be: ...

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Free Hugs

Author

Laura Sumner Truax and Amalya Campbell

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On a Friday in July of 2007, fourteen-year-old LaSaller David Melia stumbled upon people giving away hugs outside a movie theater. Strange, he thought, and refused to take them up on their offer. Hour...

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