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Your Online Guide to Faith in the Workplace

November 9, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

When I first became interested in the strange idea of linking my spiritual life to my career, I enthusiastically sought out like-minded souls for advice and commiseration.

Without knowing exactly how best to categorize this subject (which is a problem unto itself, to be discussed on another day), I carefully typed “Faith in the Workplace” into the Google search bar, hoping to retrieve a myriad of helpful and compelling resources.

Unfortunately, the search results led me down a fragmented path of church groups, authors, and wannabe-experts, some of which were helpful, and others which were, frankly, a little kooky. Despite the seemingly infinite sophistication of Google’s search-engine algorithms, I found that the best online resources are often difficult for the newly initiated to uncover.

A “Faith in the Workplace” Curator?

What we need is a Curator – a polished and capable guide with exceptionally sophisticated taste, one who can sift through all the noise and adeptly lead others to the best that the internet has to offer on the subject of Faith and Work.

Seeing as no one has stepped up thus far, I will be more than happy to fill the void to serve you in that capacity. And why not? Over the past year or so, I have slogged through numerous Blogs and websites as I plugged into the Faith and Workplace community. In the process, I found a rich and varied world of  online magazines, organizations, gurus, bloggers, and other working schlocks just like you and me who are dedicated to the integration of their faith and work.

So now, imagine, if you will, that just for today, I am your esteemed and very selective Curator for the entire online world of work and faith. Allow me to point out the most relevant, thoughtful and compelling material on the internet addressing this burgeoning niche of faith, work and spirituality. 

Online Magazines

The big Kahunas in this niche are online magazines Inside Work and The High Calling. These are the sites where your beloved curator spend most of his time. No matter that I also happen to write for both of these organizations, which by no means makes me biased towards the excellence and good taste of their offerings. You can visit them both and decide for yourself.

Inside Work.  The tag line for this organization is “Business Spiritually Engaged.” That alone scores them points, for coming up with a much more agreeable phrase than “Faith in the Workplace.” These guys are smart and sophisticated. They approach business for what it is, without slicing and dicing it through a theological Cuisinart. The site is geared towards managers, executives and entrepreneurs, with a slight Silicon Valley slant (they are based in that area, after all). InsideWork assumes you are visiting the site because you are passionate about both your career and your faith, and as such, they often draw from current events and thinkers in the business, economic and financial world. They offer daily posts, Study Guides, conferences and even consulting (or so I’ve heard. No one there really advertises it. Maybe it’s just a rumor? I’ll get to the bottom of that before long, though). Don’t expect a traditional, old-school approach to Faith in the Workplace here. I would venture to say these guys are probably the most progressive thinkers in what can sometimes become a stale field.

The High Calling.  This organization is founded and directed by Howard Butt, the founder of the famous upscale H.E. Butt grocery chain in the Southwest. That, of course, brings immediate credibility to these folks. But the real online mover and shaker at High Calling is Senior Editor, Marcus Goodyear. Marcus also heads up the High Calling Blogs, a spin-off of the High Calling site built around an active blogging community, as well as Christianity Today’s Faith in the Workplace website content. The High Calling is dedicated to folks who are interested in finding their high calling in life, through work or otherwise. Which means that it goes a little broader than just the work-life category. And that would be my only caution – at the moment, you may find more Mommies than Managers engaged in this site. But the sense of community it generates, especially at the High Calling Blogs is very special, indeed.

Business as Mission Network  . The tag line here is, “News, resources and tools to turn good business into Great ministry.” Founder Justin Forman has a turbo-charged website that is the ultimate catch-all for Christian business leaders who view their business as an expression of their Evangelical Christian faith. If your desire is to use your business as a mission field to “build the Kingdom,” then this site will have you like a kid in the candy store. 

Ministry Organizations

There are a number of organizations that identify themselves as ministries, dedicated to serving, growing and nurturing the battalion of employees hacking it out in the workforce.

Made to Matter . This is former truck driver Randy Kilgore’s site dedicated mostly to biblical study guides on various topics of work and career, designed to encourage workers in their faith on the job. He has been at this for a long, long, time, and has built up quite an expertise and following. Randy is one of those rare individuals who has both real hard-core business experience as well as a degree in theology, so he has become one of the few pastoral leaders in this field with some real credibility in preaching to the workforce. His primary audience would be earnest Christians who are seeking to pump up their spiritual lives at work with daily doses of scriptural insight. Randy acknowledges that every job is sacred, and caters to the every-day line worker, as opposed to executives, leaders or managers.

His Church at Work. These folks have put together a fairly comprehensive program that helps those of us in the workplace “assess, grow and navigate tough workplace issues.” Their goal is to help people align their work life with God’s plans. I have to give these guys credit for developing a thorough online toolkit which breaks down the components of work life into distinct “Navigators,” to be followed up with very practical bible-study applications. This is one of the onlyonline resources that provide practical tools. Even better news, it’s free!

Marketplace Leaders    The mission of Marketplace Leaders is “to help men and women discover and fulfill God’s unique and complete purposes through their workplace calling.” Marketplace Leaders is the brainchild of author and speaker, Os Hillman, and by the looks of it, this guy means serious business. His organization provides conferences, coaching, devotionals, books, articles, training, you name it. Coming soon to a theatre near you.

Academics, Theologians and Gurus

David Miller, Director of Princeton’s Faith and Work Initiative.  David Miller has become well known as one of the pre-eminent thought leaders in the work-faith movement because (1) He is a former investment banker; (2) He wrote a very well-respected book, “God at Work The History and Promise of the Faith-Work Movement;” and (3) He operates out of Princeton University. The ol’ triple threat, as Paula Abdul might say.

Ken Costa . Ken Costa is the equivalent to David Miller, except he lives across the pond. He is also very well known as a pre-eminent thought leader in the faith-work movement, because: (1) He is a former investment banker; (2) He wrote a very well-respected book, “God at Work: Discover the Real Purpose of Your Life;” and (3) He operates out of London.  Parallel lives?

Executive Soul . Margaret Benefiel is a Quaker professor who wrote two books on workplace spirituality, “The Soul of Leader,” and “The Soul at Work.” She does plenty of speaking and consulting on spirituality, but goes beyond a Christian spirituality to encourage business leaders to embrace spiritual practices to enhance their organization. 

Yale Center for Faith and Culture  . Miroslav Wolf leads this storied academic institution’s Center for Faith and Culture by focusing  on research and leadership development to bring a more lively and dynamic spirituality into the workplace. Much of their emphasis is on integrity and ethics issues, along with a Reconciliation program to reach out to improve relations with the Muslim world.　

Theology of Work . This is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to creating a theological commentary to support a biblical basis for work. Their focus is on the clergy, to provide pastors, priests and ministers with sound theology and biblical back-up that will allow them to encourage their congregations to fully express their faith in the workplace. Formerly linked to Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, this organization is now run as a non-profit, led by former Harvard MBA-investment-banker-turned Episcopal Priest, Will Messenger (what is it with these former investment bankers?!), along with a Who’s Who of names from the greater Boston area.

Dr. Stephen Payne. If you really want to get right down to the business of getting your spiritual life connected to your business life, I would recommed you do as I did, and hire Executive Leadership Coach and author, Dr. Stephen Payne. Dr. Payne is CEO of Leadership Strategies, and his latest venture, Equilibrium Fellowship. He is also the driving force behind the Spirituality in Leadership Series over at Princeton Theological Seminary.

And so much more…

There are many more resources online, including bloggers, career-networking groups, church ministries, books, and, of course, more bloggers. It would take many more posts and pages to list them all.

A quick tip – If you want to get started on connecting with other work-faith bloggers, I would suggest that you look at my blogroll under “Work and Faith” category. Next, Red Letter Believers has a pretty thorough and up-to-date blogroll, and then also check The High Calling Blogs list of “Work” Blogs.  That should do ya.

Whew! I never thought that Curating would be such hard work. So for now, this is your Curator, signing off.  Thanks for shopping with me, and hopefully this gets you off to a good start on your journey for discovering the vast resources available online for building your faith at work.

Posted in Faith in the Workplace | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Move Over, Christians. Buddhism is the New Standard for Business Spirituality

November 4, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

My friend Joan Ball over at Beliefnet recently attended a “Trust Summit” at the Harvard Club in New York City, where authors of the business books Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence (by social media gurus Chris Brogan and Julien Smith) and The Trusted Advisor (by David H. Maister, Charles Green and Robert M. Galford) were the featured speakers. The topic was how to build trust among your business constituents.

Their presentations were followed by a lengthy Q&A session, which Joan describes in her Blog post, “What Churches Can Learn from the Harvard Business School.”

After the line of social media experts had exhausted the authors with 90 minutes of questions attempting to decipher what these gurus might tag as the Next Big Thing, Joan stepped up to the microphone and asked a real good, simple question – one that all of us who are interested in business and spirituality will appreciate:

“How does a leader teach matters of virtue in an organization?” Continue Reading »

Posted in Leadership, Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments »

How Important is Your Image To Your Career?

November 3, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

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Each year at my company, all of our managers will do a peer review assessment as part of their performance evaluation. What this means is that each manager will rate all of the other managers on a number of factors. The end result is a conglomerate snapshot of what everyone else thinks about your skills, performance, service and leadership. It’s based purely on subjective perception.

Not everyone likes it.

This peer review is not the only tool we use to assess performance, but we do believe that it is important for managers to know how the organization generally perceives them if they want to grow and develop in their careers. For those who find themselves at the lower end of the review scale, it is an opportuity to discuss why they are there and what they might be able to do to improve on it.  In almost all of the cases, the people with the low peer evaluation scores are also the poorest performers.

To continue reading this post, click here to get over to the High Calling Blogs!

Posted in Career, Executive Career Development, Leadership, Managing People | 2 Comments »

Are You Dealing with Ambiguity, Complexity and Uncertainty? Welcome to the Real World.

October 30, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

It’s my end-of-month re-post time, and here is one from last Spring that later got picked up by the Conference Board Review magazine. My first published magazine article! Enjoy!

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We have a saying here at my company: we like to see managers get “bloodied up a bit” before moving them into more prominent leadership roles. If we believe someone has management potential, we will intentionally put them in a situation where they will encounter extreme conflict, opposition, or just plain ambiguity (which in and of itself can be very stressful). Then we will watch closely to see how the manager candidate responds. How will they handle an impossible situation where there is no right or wrong answer, but a decision has to be made? How will they manage conflict and difficult personalities?  How will they weather through a thorny issue that may take a year or two to work its way through to resolution? Our hope is that the painful, difficult experiences will help mature the person in question, and that through the experience they will gain wisdom, as well as a measure of trust and respect from both the executives and their peers.

If you haven’t picked up on it by now, the reality of most business situations is that they are extremely complicated. Kind of like real life. There are rarely cut and dry textbook answers to the dilemmas we face. None of us can predict the future or be precisely confident that every decision we make is the right one. Usually, you don’t know if you’ve made the right decision until weeks or months later.

Last year we took two young, strapping guys who were newly minted MBA’s, and threw them into the ring to see what they were made of. It was clear that these young men had strong leadership potential. But how best to make it shine? Then the perfect opportunity came up. It was almost providential. We had a small business that had been an utter mess over the past three years due to a combination of some bad decision-making on the part of the previous manager  (I wrote about firing this manager in “Who Would Jesus Fire“), along with some just plain ol’ bad luck: regulatory issues, commodity market swings, equipment failures, that sort of thing.

“Well,” said I one day to the Chairman, rubbing my fingers together briskly with an evil glint in my eye, “Why don’t we throw Don and Gary into this stinkhole? It would be a great experience for them, and we can see if they learned anything in business school.’” At this point we throw our heads back and break into such a laughing fit that we can barely continue the conversation. After we calm down, I say. “Seriously. I wonder if they would be able to manage their way through a turnaround?” The Chairman leans back in his chair and gazes up at the ceiling for moment. A sly grin also appears on his face. “Yes,” he says, slowly, calculating. “Let’s see how they do when they actually have to live inside a case study rather than talking about it in a classroom.”  Brilliant.

Sometimes the best thing to help you grow and mature is to be put into a really difficult, challenging situation. God does this to me all the time. He doesn’t care what I think,  because he knows better. He knows what’s best for me. He sees my potential, way beyond what I think I’m capable of myself. I picture Him rubbing his hands together, saying “Oh, just look at him. Bradley’s had it far too easy lately. He’s getting too comfortable. Let’s beat the crap out of him for a while. He’ll thank me later.” If these experiences don’t do you in, they usually provide an excellent opportunity to grow in maturity and stamina. In my company’s case, it also allows the prospective manager to experience the practical realities of leadership, with all the messy employee issues and market chaos and unexpected crap hitting the fan. And we can’t really trust a manager to make major decisions or handle significant responsibilities without having observed them live through some of these situations, and eventually coming out the other side in tact.  

Some people have the stomach for it, and others don’t. You find out fairly quickly. I don’t know why the difficult, gut-wrenching experiences are so crucial, other than they somehow test us – our will, our strength – and humble us at the same time. And that’s how we grow in wisdom and confidence, I guess. Now, there’s a great combination for leaders: wisdom, confidence, and humility.

There’s a huge gap between those who can, and those who can not make that leap. We have plenty of people in our organization who are capable doers, skilled at many areas of business, but who can not seem to cross the line over into this vaguely defined level of maturity. One reason is their lack of willingness to simply take on responsibility for more and more things. Maybe they are scared. Or maybe they are just lazy.  Decision-making in business involves risk, and not everyone has the personal wherewithal for combining personal responsibility with risk. Yet this is how we grow.

Don and Gary did a great job. It was hard at first, but I stayed close to them for the first few months, making sure they knew there was someone to lean on in case things got too hairy. Which they did. But gradually, as they saw the dynamics of navigating the failures and successes and all the in-between stuff, these guys gained confidence in their decision-making. They took more and more personal ownership over the business. Before long, the calls they made to me were not to ask my opinion on what to do, but to inform me of some bold decisions that they needed to make to ensure the turnaround. It was great to watch this transformation. Eighteen months after they started, the business is now solid, stable and more profitable than it has ever been. And I had very little to do with it.

The other day Don thanked me. He said this was the best experience of his career and he wouldn’t have traded anything for it. Did these guys feel like they got a little beat up along the way? Sure they did.

Join the club.

Posted in Ambition | Tagged , , | 13 Comments »

Devil in the Detail

October 28, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

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It was a horrible day yesterday. I can’t attribute it to anything specific, other than waking up with a feeling that this wasn’t my usual resilient and optimistic self. Sure, there were also a couple of troublesome meetings at work, but I typically navigate my way through those types of things without letting it bog me down.  On a better day, I would shrug it off, take whatever lessons to be learned from it, and get on with my business. But yesterday I was a little off.  The negative energy hung over my head like a dark, oppressive cloud.  I didn’t think I was doing a very good job. At anything.

Some people would like to blame the Devil when they have a bad day, when their spirits are sinking, when things don’t work out as they would like. But I am a little hesitant. Mostly because - well, I must confess that I have much more faith in Jesus than in Satan. In fact, lately I’ve barely paid any attention at all to Satan and his demonic forces. They don’t really have much of a priority in my life, since I am trying to focus all my conscious spiritual thoughts on the Good Guy. Why would I want to spend any mental energy on Satan? 

In the routines of my personal day-to-day life, filled with work and home and teenager daughters and a wife and church, Satan does not seem to have much direct interaction with us.  We are minding our own business. And when the usual disappointments or discouragements or illnesses or emotional meltdowns occur, I’m not thinking of Satan. I’m thinking that we’re dealing with the normal conditions of family or work life. Which, of course, are far from perfect. We struggle with all sorts of challenges. They come and go like the changing face of the moon. Ups and downs. Peace and tension. Good times and bad times. Isn’t this the essence of life? Why give Satan credit for every little detail that goes wrong? 

Then last night, while I was sleeping, I had the most terrifying dream. It scared me enough to second-guess my cavalier dismissal of the evil forces.  In this dream, I was being terribly harassed and taunted by these horrifying demonic beings. They were threatening my very soul, and it seemed so…real. Scientists don’t quite have a good explanation for dreams, other than neurons randomly firing in our brains. But somehow these electrical impulses tapped into my deepest fears and emotions in such a way that the experience was incredibly magnified into a most personal horrifying demonic encounter, far beyond anything I’ve seen in a horror movie.

In this dream, I am paralyzed as these evil demonic forces slip into my room and surround me. They are pure evil, and they begin to taunt and threaten me. The problem is that I can’t move or speak, and I am desperate to escape. All I can think of is that if I just Call On The Name Of The Lord then I will be Saved. Just call out the name of Jesus!

JESUS!

For a while the demons continue to have their way with me and I’m absolutely petrified, still unable to move or speak as they move in closer and closer for the kill. I’m trying like heck to mobilize my body and voice so that I can just call out the name of Jesus. Just when it seems like they are going to do me in, I somehow garner the strength and stretch out my hand. I point at them with a fierce resolve, and shout out “I CALL ON THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!”

Like a magic incantation, the demons then shrink away, shriveling up and covering their ears as they howl in pain. Finally, I am free! Thank you Lord Jesus!

In the process of liberating myself from the oppression of the demonic forces, I have also woken up myself, and my wife, who is wondering why I was shouting/mumbling some nonsense while flinging my arm up to the ceiling. What she heard was more like “ihhh clllllllll jhiiizzzssss” without quite the same heroic drama that accompanied my rapidly firing brain neurons.  But I woke up scared and vulnerable and absolutely grateful to Jesus for saving me in my imaginary warfare adventure.

Did it mean anything? I don’t know. I was exhausted and emotionally spent from those difficult meetings earlier in the day, so it’s only natural that my subconscious just gets it all out in a big cathartic production while I’m sleeping.

But I quietly wondered – was that real? Are there really demons battling for my soul? Are the anxieties and emotional struggles I experience connected in some way to this spiritual invisible world of demons, out doing Satan’s bidding, trying to take me down, to make me a loser and a failure, not to mention take my very soul?

I’m not sure. All I know is that calling on the name of Jesus saved me then, and it somehow saves me every time I am struggling. It saves my family when we are going through difficult experiences, and it saves me at work when I feel that I am in over my head. Whether Satan has anything to do with me or not, I will always take comfort in the power of calling on the name of Jesus. Jesus gets the benefit of the doubt, and that alone is a victory for Jesus and big defeat for the Evil One.

Image used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user piccadillywilson

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments »

Can You Sum Up Your Life’s Message With Just One Word?

October 25, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

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Have you noticed the trend of one-word book titles hitting the market lately? A couple of popular one-word books that you may be familiar with are “Outliers” and “Blink,” both authored by hip business-social observer Malcolm Gladwell. There’s also “Free” by Wired magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Chris Andersen, where he tries to convince us that future business profit models will be based on giving things away rather than charging for them. Or have you read “Sway,” by Ori and Ron Brafman? It’s about the subliminal powers at work in our impressionable brains which cause us to make irrational decisions. Have you heard of “Nudge” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein? I hadn’t, but last time I looked, it was number 7 on the NY Times paperback business bestsellers – another book about the choices we make on health, happiness and money. Then there’s the recent “Payback” by Margaret Atwood, and “Unstuck” by innovation and leadership consultant, Keith Yamashita.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. These authors have achieved the enviable goal of distilling their entire content into one catchy, hugely marketable, definitive word that sums up precisely what they are all about. You not only “get it” when you hear the hook of the title, but it’s easy to talk about, and pass the word on to others.

So it got me thinking about all this time and effort and passion I spend on my Shrinking the Camel Blog, trying to pin down the integration of my faith and my career. What am I trying to say? If I were to write a book that distilled the entire mission and mad ramblings of this Blog into one word, could I do it?  What would that one word be?

I thought about this for several days, forcing myself to choose. Finally I came up with the One Word for my phantom book.

 “Tool”

Can you picture it? I think it would have nice ring, especially when being discussed over the airwaves. “Hello, I’m Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air, from National Public Radio! Today we are talking to Bradley J. Moore about his new book, which talks about the counterintuitive link between business and spiritual life, called ‘Tool.’ Welcome Mr. Moore.”

“Hello, Terry. It’s my pleasure.”   (They always say that, when Terry welcomes them)

I know, “Tool” may sound kind of lame and you may not like it very much, but this title is actually rich with many layers of meanings. Here is my thinking behind it: 

  1. I like the snarky, self-deferential tone of the slang. You knew that would be the first thing I went for, right? And the slang is probably the first association that anyone under 25 years of age will think of when they see this word. I asked my teenage daughters what they thought “Tool” meant, and they said, “It’s someone who thinks they’re really cool, but they’re not.” Perfect! The slang meaning for the word. “Tool” could also be something like “nerd,” “dope,” “loser,” or “idiot” (among other things). So it gives off a bit of that tongue-in-cheek, self-deferential slant which is consistent with my writing, adding just a hint of irreverence. We can’t take ourselves too seriously, now, can we? 
  2. We are ultimately vessels to be used by God. Here comes the paradoxical spiritual element: “Tool” infers that I am surrendered to God for doing His work, rather than focusing on myself, my ego and my own achievements. This is a very difficult concept for most of us Type-A, hard-driving control-freaks to grasp, but I know that it is possible, and probably best that we just accept this. Thus it is front-and-center in the title. 
  3. We acknowledge our unique gifts and talents are directly from God and they are something that can be useful to others. Most tools are used for very specific types of productive work. I am wired with a very specific set of God-given skills, abilities, personality, etc. that can be put to good use for others.  
  4. There is a strong business/management connotation. When I worked for  consulting firms, we were always referring to our “tools” or “toolbox” as the set of methodologies, templates and procedures that we could apply to our clients to help them become more effective in business. Same is true of tools for connecting spiritual and business life, and I think it would make for a good business-oriented read.

 So there ya go. I am totally God’s Corporate Tool.

What about you? Could you distill your entire identity and purpose into one word?

Did you enjoy the dream sequence in my previous post involving famous literary agents approaching me about my brilliant work?

Don’t you hate it when Blogs ask these obviously leading questions at the end of the post?

Posted in Faith in the Workplace, Purpose | Tagged , | 18 Comments »

Your Work, Your Life, Your Masterpiece – In Just One Word (Prologue)

October 22, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

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Imagine this very afternoon you are approached by one of the most exclusive and sought-after literary agents in the country. Perhaps it is the effusive Rachelle Gardner of WordServe Literary, or the reclusive Sarah Chalfant of The Wylie Agency. 

 She has been watching you, she says, following your every move and closely monitoring those brilliant Blog entries and witty Tweets. As she speaks, you can tell that she is barely able to contain her enthusiasm, because she wants desperately for you to join her A-list of clients. However, she controls herself with a cool and detached demeanor, seeing as she is a distinguished professional. Plus she also wants to make a favorable impression on you.

The truth is, you’ve been expecting this call for years now, because you knew all along that you were really, really special – particularly when it came to expressing yourself through writing –  and that God’s plan for your life surely involved a much more robust distribution channel for sharing these inspirational vignettes beyond the pathetic dribble of visitors from your daily Blog traffic.

As she sets down her tea cup with Ivy League dexterity, you can’t help but notice her most exquisitely manicured hands. She pats at her skirt for a moment, then looks up at you and says, “Your work… It is a gift from heaven! I already have three major publishers lined up for auction. This book of yours will single-handedly revive the publishing industry, I am certain. You will be huge!”

“Well, Duh,” you think to yourself. But instead you say, “I appreciate this so much. You don’t know what it means to me, having my work acknowledged by one with such refined taste as yours.”

She gives a half-interested nod, but is preoccupied. “There’s just one thing…” she says, coyly, tilting her head ever so slightly while stroking your cat, which has silently appeared on the sofa where she is seated.

“Sure,” you reply. “Anything for this book deal. What is it?”

“Your book…” She begins, but her voice falls to a whisper. “Your…masterpiece -” She pauses, gazing out the window at the pattering raindrops against the gray sky. A clap of thunder cracks the silence. She returns a determined, penetrating gaze. “The title of your book – It can only be one word.”

Your face turns white with the shock of this seemingly absurd demand. She continues with a fierce resolve. “Your entire work must be summed up with just one word! The publishers insist!” The hissing of her words hang in the air like a cloud of smoke as she stands to her feet. “It’s the only way this book will sell!”

“One word? My entire life’s work? Are you crazy?”

With that, she exits as quickly as she arrived. You notice that a business card has been left behind, which has fallen to the floor. Picking it up, you study the bold font announcing her fabulous name, and you detect the faintest scent of her lingering perfume. Her voice echoes in your head over and over again with her dire command: “Just one word! Just one word!”

To be continued.

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments »

The True Calling of Capitalism

October 20, 2009 by shrinkingthecamel

City004-300x120[1]Earlier this month, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation sponsored a seminar debating the role of faith in today’s global marketplace.

Wait -What? Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has a Faith Foundation? I never knew that, but apparently that’s what’s been going down across the pond these days with the tidy Mr. Blair, ever since his retirement from Prime Ministry of the United Kingdom.

The Foundation’s mission is to “promote respect and understanding about the world’s major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.” Brilliant, Tony! Spot on! (Note my convincing British accent here.)

The particular seminar that I am referring to was aptly entitled, “Faith in the Workplace?” Yes, the squeaky little question mark is there on purpose. Like I said, it was a debate.  

To finish this post (and to find out what the true calling of capitalism might be!), please head over to my article at The High Calling Blogs.

Posted in Faith in the Workplace | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

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