So many charities, so many choices. This time of year, year-end fundraising appeals pour into our mailboxes. How are we to decide between the many worthy nonprofit causes that are asking for financial support?

If you’re anything like Kelly (my wife) and me, you have to make this choice carefully. We’ve set aside a certain amount each year in our charitable giving budget, and we want our donor dollars to make an impact.

For us, there are two giving categories that won’t budge anytime soon: the local church and the poor. We believe we have both a duty and a joyful opportunity to support our local church (Littleton Christian Church) as it proclaims the gospel to our community and nonprofits like HOPE International that are serving the poor and marginalized throughout the world. I believe these two categories should be universal priorities for Christians.

But I think many Christians have often overlooked a third category for charitable giving: culture. Actually, I believe the culture category is necessary considering the redemptive scope of the resurrection and what it means to be a follower of Christ in this world. Education, the arts, scientific research, leadership development, even politics (Did I really just write that?). The broader arena in which we work and live needs generous donor support – and without generous culture patrons, our entire civilization is negatively affected. Not a small claim to defend!

Here are three reasons why I think we all need to add “culture” to our annual giving priorities:

Not all good activities our society needs are profitable, and thus, they need charitable support.

Imagine if you had to buy a $20 ticket to go to church each Sunday. Would you be incensed? What if you grew up in a community with no symphony, or you never visited an art museum or arboretum as a kid? Do you feel like other children should have that experience today – even if they can’t pay for it?

We live in the age of philanthrocapitalism – a view that says philanthropists ought to act like angel investors, and nonprofits should cease with this fundraising nonsense and act more like businesses.

Many nonprofits should indeed develop earned revenue streams (book sales, event ticket sales, or fee for service). And many organizations need to vastly improve reporting and metrics. But some valuable human endeavors are simply not profitable. And never will be.

Two examples:

(A) Education. It’s not profitable. It just isn’t. When a Ph.D. student spends five years studying medieval Hebrew manuscripts, or a kid learns a multiplication table for the first time in second grade, there’s no way these activities can – or should – be profitable. Experiments in for-profit higher education, like the University of Phoenix, haven’t gone well. The point is that education is good… and costly. And it will perpetually require donor and/or government support to impact lives and shape an educated citizenry, which our businesses, churches, hospitals and, yes, schools, depend on.

(B) Science. Building the large hadron collider, a massive particle accelerator, is costly. Really costly – to the tune of about $13.25 billion. Now, why on earth would anybody fund this? Because this activity could push all of humanity forward through a new scientific breakthrough. It’s not profitable – but it is valuable. Cancer research, a children’s hospital, the chemistry department at your local university – each need donor support.

I fully understand the need for sustainability in the nonprofit world. Trust me: as the executive director of a nonprofit, I understand this. We actively work on minimizing risk and diversifying our income streams. But it’s also worth remembering that there are incredibly valuable human endeavors that require generosity and can only flourish with the support of people who think private schools and preserving primate habitats – “culture” – are worth donor support.

Christianity leads us to invest in a broad scope of redemption – and a broad commitment to human flourishing.

Colossians 1:19-20 says, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” All things, many theologians have pointed out, means the individual soul but also neighborhoods, cities, and entire areas of human endeavor, like art, law, manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and investing.

Or take a less-quoted example: Zephaniah 3. When God judges Israel for her sin, he says, “Her officials within her are roaring lions; her rulers are evening wolves, who leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are unprincipled; they are treacherous people. Her priests profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law.” God is judging not just individuals, but cultural norms that had become unjust. He speaks to government leaders, the media (ancient prophets functioned in many ways like the media of today), and corrupt religious leaders.

God’s law, given through Moses at Sinai, lays down a vision for a just society, not the private salvation of individuals nor isolated acts of charity. As soon as he tells people to “act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God,” he follows up by mentioning the integrity (or lack thereof) of their business practices (Micah 6:8-11).

God cares about all of his creation, from neurotransmitters to nuclear energy. And because of human sin, each area of the world is distorted due to sin. Syria is crumbling, spiritual emptiness is rampant, caustic partisan division is paralyzing Washington, and refugees are suffering.

Anthony Bradley, a theologian at The King’s College, defines human flourishing as “a holistic concern for the spiritual, moral, physical, economic, material, political, psychological and social context necessary for human beings to live according to their design.” Does our giving reflect this broad view of human flourishing?

We can’t change all that has gone wrong, not give to every cause. But we can do something. Why not pick an area of culture – like spurring on the generosity movement, contributing to the formation of a potential leader, or even giving to a bunch of scholars thinking about culture – and give generously?

The poor need us to give to “culture.”

Last week I was talking with my friend David, who, through his career, has become personal friends with many high ranking government officials in Africa. One day, he took an emerging leader from the Congo (a lawyer by trade) to visit one of the world’s biggest private equity funds (hundreds of billions in assets). The fund manager said, “We’re interested in investing significantly in the Congo. But we can’t yet. Because of the scope of the investment, we need to see political stability for at least 10 years before we invest.”

The young leader went away encouraged – knowing that this investment could create thousands of jobs for his countrymen – yet knowing he needed to work on building networks of moral integrity in the upper echelon of leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help stabilize a county that’s been torn by civil war.

The point has been well made by documentaries like Poverty, Inc. or books such as Entrepreneurship for Human Flourishing that entrepreneurship and business does more to alleviate systemic poverty than charity ever will. But that’s not to say that charity isn’t necessary. On the contrary, what we most need is a certain kind of moral fiber among business leaders that turns wealth creation into societal benefit. Earning more money can mean the chance to buy more whisky and prostitutes, or it can mean the chance to invest in your kid’s education. The formation of ethical leaders, especially in business and government, is critical to poverty alleviation. (Gary Haugen has also made the case that the rule of law and preventing violence from sweeping through countries is also critical to development work.)

In summary, if we care about the poor, we can’t just give to the next natural disaster or emergency fundraising appeal we get in the mail. We need to build up institutions and the people who lead them because it leads to jobs, stability, and cultures of virtue that can put poverty to rest for good.

The Most Generous Country in the World

Americans are the most generous people in the world. We give away over $1 billion dollars a day. We give away $373 billion a year – and 73 percent of that is from individuals like you and me. (Though we give the most by total contributions, Australia and New Zealand edge us by a greater percent of people who give to charity each year.)

And people of religious faith are the most generous of all Americans. It’s controversial, but true. Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute reports that the average annual giving among the religious is $2,210 per year, whereas it is $642 among secular Americans. Christians even give to secular causes more generously than secular people.

Each year, Kelly and I strive to give more generously for the core reason that God has first given generously to us.

It’s makes me excited to give this year to the church, to the poor – and to the cultural endeavors that God so loves (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:19).

Faith and Work Movement Theology Work

Broader, Not Deeper

October 3, 2016

What will allow more pastors to see the importance of work for their church and its mission? How might the faith and work movement help pastors and seminaries to embrace ministry models that equips men and women to serve Christ in the wide array of professions in our culture today? And why is this so difficult?

Last year, I interviewed Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, about his new book View from the Top. One of the lasting highlights from our conversation was about his research on the White House Fellows, a leadership development experience that had shaped a significant majority of the 500+ “platinum” leaders in his study. The vast majority of these leaders had experienced a “broadening education” during their time as White House Fellows. Fellows had candid, off-the-record conversations with everybody from zoologists to members of the President’s cabinet. Through this experience, they developed a taste for seeing issues in society broadly, not only from the perspective of their own field, but from the perspective of others as well.

The reason, says Lindsay, this is so important for leadership development is that most of our career tracks drive us to becoming technicians, not generalists. We go through school and our early career, perhaps get a professional degree, and then get technically proficient at a single thing – whether that be creating pitch books or operating on a L5 vertebrae. And usually, these jobs are handsomely remunerated. The problem is that we have less and less of an incentive to see the broad world outside of our field, and what those kinds of work mean for building a good society. We may start off with a liberal arts education, but we very rarely cultivate a liberal arts lifestyle.

For example, Lindsay interviewed John Mendelsohn, who just stepped down as the head of MD Anderson Cancer Center. Mendelsohn was a top-flight scientist at a prestigious research institution. When Lindsay interviewed him for View from the Top, he asked Mendelsohn what book was on his nightstand. Surely a book on cancer research, or science more broadly. Right? No. The history of opera. Mendelsohn was reading about the history of opera before falling asleep! Why? Because he wanted to know more about the world he lived in.

This practice of broad learning, not deep, is core, says Lindsay, to a kind of leadership that is good for society in general. I’d also argue that it is core to helping more ministry professionals see the world of work outside the walls of a church.

So often, when we teach about professional growth, we go further and further into our own disciplines. More management theory for executives, or more biblical commentaries for pastors. But more often than not, the deepest growth happens at the intersection between fields and the relationships of people leading in vastly different sectors. (This idea has also influenced the formation of the 5280 Fellowship.)

Within the faith and work movement, we often ask the question: how will more leaders of God’s church start seeing the centrality of work to God’s restoration of his creation? We typically do what most professional development programs do: get more people to see it our way. Ask them to read Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor or Tom Nelson’s Work Matters. Or come to a conference where Steve Garber or Amy Sherman are speaking. These are all good things to do. Tim, Tom, Steve and Amy are incredible human beings, and we should read more of their work.

But I don’t actually think that an initial step further into theology is the right move. What’s lacking for most is not good theology but good anthropology. Many pastors are wonderful theologians, correctly exegeting Bible passages, expounding gospel-centered ministry, and speaking of God’s kingdom and His redemption coming to all aspects of the world. What we can’t actually see, often, is the world and what human beings are actually doing in that world. We see elders, youth ministry workers, deacons, and volunteers, but it’s hard to see executive coaches, cashiers, community college administrators, nurses, and homeschooling moms filling the pews.

Most men and women need to learn only one other field to grow in the integration of faith and work: theology. Pastors, however, need to not only know theology, but all the fields their people work in: something of finance, K-12 education, health care, retail, manufacturing, agriculture and the social sciences. For starters.

What practices can help church leaders to see the world in which we live, and what Christian faith means for that world? To begin with, I’d say to temporarily put down the Bible commentary, and start to look broader, not deeper.

Here are three places to start:

Broad Reading. Drawn to reading Tim Keller or James K.A. Smith? Read American history or the Wall Street Journal Drawn to Fox News? Flip on MSNBC. Love reading systematic theology? Me too. But just to toss in a curve ball, consider 18^th century literature, or classic psychology. If you’re stuck, ask a friend about their work, and try to read one foundational work in that field before the year’s out. This broad reading will allow us to see a bigger view of “the city” we so often like to talk about renewing – and all the thorny, complex, and beautiful issues and industries in that city.

Broad Listening. I’m so guilty here. Generally speaking, when I feel out of my league after the inevitable “What do you do?” question, I steer the question back to a topic I’m a pro in. It’s easier that way, and I don’t feel stupid when my friend is speaking about pharmaceutical sales or loan underwriting. But what if we simply dove further in, and became more curious about the work of others? I’ve experimented with this, and it’s just like learning a foreign language as an adult: you have to concede that you’ll sound like a kindergartner. But when you do, your imagination for what redemption might look like in physics research or ceramics production grows exponentially. This is really a practice in pastoral ministry – the shepherding of God’s flock for their formation in the pastures that God has placed them.

Broad Relationships. We tend to hang out with people just like us. Again, guilty as charged. Most of my friends are white Christians that work in an occupational ministry-related field, many of whom live in suburban Colorado – like me. But what if we all made a commitment to having lunch, coffee, or dinner with people vastly different than us – ethnically, socio-economically, or vocationally? We would be able to see a far wider perspective on the world. Also, many of our biases against “those” people might be put to rest if we simply listened to their stories: where they grew up, the pains they suffer, the longings they harbor. Here we might be able to find common ground even with our enemies, thus making Jesus’ command to “love our enemies” a bit easier to do..

Perhaps these, not another faith and work conference, are the best next step for a broader cultural engagement, and a church that embraces its missionary role in the world.

This post first appeared on The Green Room. Photo credit.

Seven Quotes from Psychiatrist Curt Thompson on Shame

September 16, 2016

Yesterday we at Denver Institute for Faith & Work had the privilege of welcoming author and psychiatrist Curt Thompson to Denver. We began with a conversation with pastors on how shame influences our brains, our vocations, and pastoral ministry; we then heard Curt speak at Colorado Community Church to 150 attendees on how to heal shame through retelling a different story about ourselves; he ended his time giving a workshop on shame for therapists in the Denver area.

His combination of neuroscience, psychiatry, interpersonal biology, Christian theology and spiritual formation practices was, well, I’ve never heard anything like it…

The videos of his talks will be available on our vimeo channel in about a month. Until then, here are some of my favorite quotes from his time with us.

Seven Quotes from Curt Thompson on Shame

1. “Shame is directly connected to your ability to do creative, liberating work.”

2. “Shame was operative in the garden of Eden even before Eve ate the fruit; the serpent introduced it before the Fall.”

3. “We are best able to create, as God does, when we are ‘naked and unashamed'” (Gen. 2:25).”

4. “The healing of shame takes place through the process of being known, through vulnerability in community.”

5. “Pastoral ministry is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Where can pastors go to talk about their shame?”

6. “If you were not afraid of being ashamed, what risks would you take in your job?”

7. “Paying attention to the Holy Spirit is first paying attention to your body, and how your body is responding to shame.”

Culture Politics Work

The American Bible

September 12, 2016

How do we restore civility to American public life? This will be the topic of conversation on October 13 at a lunch in Denver “Civility: Becoming People of Peace in an Age of Deep Division.” This book review, originally published on The Gospel Coalition, evaluates religion scholar Stephen Prothero’s attempt to bring civil discourse back to a raucous political culture in Washington DC by looking back at her most sacred, formative texts: what he calls, “The American Bible.”

America is not just a country; it’s a religion. The faithful sing her praises at baseball games, pay homage to her heroes in Washington, D.C., and recite her pledge of loyalty in schools. They remember the tale of her exodus from England, and fancy themselves as a chosen people. They chide themselves for the original sin of slavery, and praise redeemers like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. who shed their blood in atonement for the sins of a nation. They spread the gospel of freedom, equality, and democracy, and when doubts arise, they return to America’s most hallowed center to define themselves: their holy scriptures.

Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University, has done us the favor of compiling these “holy scriptures” of American public life in his latest book, The American Bible: How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation. This book is not a translation of the Bible, nor is it even about American religion per se. It is an anthology of classic American texts—legal documents, songs, books, speeches, and letters—that form what Prothero calls “The American Bible.” From the Constitution and “The Star-Spangled Banner” to Atlas Shrugged and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Prothero aims to assemble America’s “canonical works” in order to bring civil conversation back into a Washington characterized by caustic partisan bickering. But as one of America’s leading religion scholars, Prothero has given us much deeper insights than mere political wisdom. In unveiling America’s sacred texts, Prothero sheds light on an uncomfortable truth: America has indeed become a religion.

The American Conversation

A thick volume, as if designed to resemble a family King James Bible, The American Bible gathers the near mythic voices of American history. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense incites a revolution, George Washington’s Farewell Address warns of divisive party politics, and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address defines America as a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Dissenting voices like Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” Chief Joseph’s declaration “I will fight no more forever,” and Malcom X’s The Autobiography of Malcom X all find a place in America’s holy writ. From Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” to Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state,” The American Bible is a one-volume cornucopia of America’s most hallowed and fiercely debated texts.

Following the pattern of an “American canon,” the book’s table of contents employs themes from the real Bible to organize its ideas. “Genesis” includes texts on America’s founding period, “Chronicles” includes excerpts from classic American novels (Uncle Tom’s Cabin triumphs as most influential), and “Gospels” includes classic speeches from Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Prothero gives each entry in The American Bible a three-part structure: an introduction written by himself, the primary source text, and an extended commentary of disagreeing voices through the decades, forming a kind of “American Talmud” that embraces spirited disputation in much the same way Jewish rabbis debate the Torah.

For Prothero, the heart of America is not a common creed, but a common conversation. He writes, “The United States is not held together by a common creed. . . . What brings us together is practice—the practice of listening to and arguing about voices from our shared past.” The key to fixing our “obviously dysfunctional” Congress and our common life that has “devolved into a shouting match” lies not so much in finding agreement as in learning how to argue with civility for America, not just for your own party. A return to the sources of American life—figures Jefferson, Lincoln, and King—provides the foundation of American identity, even without coming to an agreement on their meaning. For Prothero, to criticize your country is not to opt out of the American experiment, but to opt in. And in this debate he hopes to unify a creedless people around the Great Conversation of what it means to be an American.

The Good, the Bad, and the Haunting

It’s not difficult to find things to praise about The American Bible. It is a treasure trove for understanding American culture. Far too many Christians try to understand culture by analyzing the latest social media trend or MTV top ten list, forgetting all the while the truly distinct features of American life. If an alien landed in modern America and wanted to know its essential features, Facebook may not help much, but The American Bible would. Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry shape the American ethos more than Lady Gaga or Mark Zuckerberg ever will.

Moreover, Prothero’s book offers a clear, even-handed treatment of enduring political debates. His assembled “rabbinic” commentary draws from both the right and the left, giving credence to his aim of bringing civility back to fiery contemporary debates. Written in crisp and concise prose, Prothero also has a knack for selecting only the best sources and making complex issues understandable for the average reader.

However, Prothero’s main thesis that America isn’t defined by creed but by common debate doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. He declares:

It is not un-American to criticize any book in the American Bible. Look Lincoln in the eye and tell him you don’t give a hoot about equality. . . . More power to you. . . . No idea is dogma. But as you criticize Lincoln or King or Bush or Obama, know what you are doing. You are not opting out of America; you are opting in. . . . [Americans] come together to argue. This is our shared practice (489).

For Prothero, the only bond of unity for Americans is the argument itself. But if there is no American creed—even something as broad as “freedom, justice, and equality,” however they’re defined—then why are we arguing at all? Is there no hope for ever arriving at truth? It’s problematic to write a book with the aim of restoring civility to American politics and yet claim that arguing is our most central feature. To declare that there are no American dogmas or doctrines is to disagree with most authors of The American Bible who, judging by their colorful use of language, certainly believed they had arrived at the truth. Taken to its logical extreme, Prothero’s thesis leaves us not with thundering King, brilliant Jefferson, or determined Washington, but the wet noodles of postmodern uncertainty.

But his thesis isn’t what caused me to shudder; it was his metaphors. For example, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington form the “American trinity.” Slavery is the great “original sin,” the Gettysburg Address our American “Sermon on the Mount,” and Noah Webster’s Blue-Back Speller a sort of “federal catechism” for colonial America. Whether portraying Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” as a national psalm or blatantly tagging classic American texts as national scripture, the reader is forced to honestly ask, “To what degree does America function like a religion?”

Although nationalism is nothing new, the idea of “American civil religion” is relatively recent, introduced during the 1960s by sociologist Robert Bellah. American civil religion is generally thought to be a distinctive faith, complete with myths of origin (the Revolution, the Boston Tea Party), a pantheon of saints and martyrs (the Founding Fathers, the fallen Lincoln), a liturgical calendar (the Fourth of July, Memorial Day), and an all-embracing worldview. Prothero’s American Bible falls squarely in this camp. Though he certainly wouldn’t claim this as his own worldview—he’s far to “objective” for that—he makes the case that the real Bible “stands alongside other texts that Americans have long been held as sacred.” Borrowing Christian language for American ideas is not just metaphor for Prothero; it’s an allusion to the nation-state’s ultimate supremacy in all matters of faith and practice.

It’s debatable how widespread American civil religion really is. The line between admiration of national heroes and hero-worship can be blurry. But at bare minimum, ministers must honestly ask, “When does the flag displace the cross on the altar of American Christianity?”

A Better Country

The American story is a good one. For centuries immigrants have flocked to America for liberty, justice, and opportunity. And it’s worth reading the foundational ideas behind the American experiment, even if it means buying a lengthy (and rather heavy) anthology.

But the mystique of America is no match for the eternal kingdom of God, a heavenly country God’s people have desired for centuries (Heb. 11:16). When America tries to make itself the gospel, the great story to which all other worldviews and religions must bow, pastors have the distinct privilege of reminding us that the United States will eventually pass away, but Christ will reign forever and ever (Isa. 9:6).

Photo credit: Capitol

Tickets are available for the luncheon on civility on October 13 by visiting the event website.

Economy Work

The Missing Piece of Colorado’s Pension Crisis: Rethinking Retirement on Labor Day

September 5, 2016

Labor Day, the federal holiday dedicated to honoring the dignity of work, is a fitting time to take a fresh look at Colorado’s pension problems and offer a new perspective.

This June, news outlets were in an uproar when Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) CEO Gregory Smith praised a paltry 1.5 percent return on 2015 investments as “good” news. With 500,000 Coloradans depending on PERA for their retirement, the $28 billion gap between assets and what is promised to retirees has hard-working men and women simmering.

The fear and frustration is understandable. But to face this challenge, we need more than clever accounting tactics or scapegoating nervous fund managers. We need a better story about ageing, retirement, and the purpose of our work.

Three simple truths can help.

1. We’re not getting any younger, but we are living longer. The Denver Office on Aging forecasts that by 2035 the number of Coloradans older than 60 will swell from one-in-six today to one-in-four. Actually, the entire developed world is aging – and living longer, too. In 1900, most didn’t live past 50. Today, American life expectancy is 78. For the first time in world history, Americans who retire at 65 must think about how they will spend 10-20 years of leisure time.

2. The idea of retiring at age 65 needs retiring. In the late 1800s, Otto Von Bismark established a retirement age of 70 for disabled German workers – even though life expectancy was only 47. During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt feared that unemployment among youth could create conditions like those under Hitler and Mussolini. So his administration offered pensions to older workers to incent retirement and open jobs for younger workers. The Social Security Act was passed in 1935 and set the retirement age at 65 (when life expectancy was still only 63).

You can see the problem. Today we encourage productive, able, bright citizens in their 60s to stop working and start collecting a pension. This is misaligned with a Boomer generation that’s often more interested in meaningful contribution than sipping piña coladas on a cruise ship – and expensive.

3. We should honor the contributions of public employees at any age. To solve the pension crises, we need to decide between two stories about our work.

One story says work is about toiling for 35-plus years until retirement, when you take it easy, play golf and enjoy long trips to Arizona. After all those disagreeable years of labor, you deserve a vacation—for two decades.

The other story is that work is about creative service and making a satisfying contribution to our world. In the words of English writer Dorothy Sayers, “Work should be the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction.”

Gary VanderArk is a not-so-retired physician living in south Denver. In his late 70s, he continues to teach medical students, serve on nearly a dozen nonprofit boards, and bike 20 miles a day. You’d think the founder of Doctors Care, a nonprofit that has helped thousands of Colorado’s medically underserved, might finally hang it up and retire. When I asked him why, he said with a broad grin, “I believe it’s more blessed to give than to receive. I’m enjoying myself too much to stop.”

What if we stopped encouraging retirement in our 60s, and began to publicly praise the contributions of snow plow drivers, police officers, and educators who serve with excellence well into their 70s, as some do?

It would mean more men and women might “long enjoy the work of their hands,” as the Hebrew prophet Isaiah once said. The desirable side effect is people pay into PERA for longer and draw fewer benefits, thus helping resolve Colorado PERA’s funding crisis.

We could start this Labor Day by finding a public employee at a backyard cookout and thanking her for serving.

Photo Credit: Retire

Economy Faith and Work Movement Work

The Top 5 Struggles of Christian Business Leaders

August 26, 2016

Behind the veneer of confidence, bold risk-taking, and decisive leadership, all of us in positions of influence struggle – especially CEOs. Considering these challenges tend to be perennial challenges for Christian business leaders, what experiences and/or resources can pastors, para-church leaders, and other business leaders provide for the executives in their network? What still needs to be done in the faith and work movement to serve leaders in this area?

Recently I grabbed the phone and called my friend Greg Leith, the CEO of Convene, a group that serves other Christian CEOs, to ask his opinion on the topic:

“Greg,” I said, “Based on your experience serving Christian CEOs around the country, what do you believe are the top areas that Christian CEOs struggle with?”

“I’ll tell you,” Greg said, in a matter-of-fact tone. Turns out, they had recently just polled hundreds of CEOs connected to Convene about the tension points they feel on a daily basis.

“The first one is universal and common among everyone we polled,” he said. The #1 challenge facing Christians CEOs is:

1. Loneliness in leadership.

If there’s any experience common to all executives, it’s loneliness. In whom do you confide when all complaints go up the chain of command, and not down? When you’re expected to make the decision, set the example, and lead the way? When revenue is down and you sense being in over your head?

It’s tough to share these challenges with other people at church, many of whom can’t identify with the responsibility of leading large staff teams or deciding on major budget issues. Even spouses can sometimes be hard to confide in for wisdom on actual business decisions.

If there’s any one place the Church can start in serving executives, it’s in providing a safe place for relationship among decision-makers.

2. Complexity in a rapidly changing, information-saturated world.

Opportunities come and go at the speed of the 24/7 news cycle. Big data (and little data) pour into our pockets through iPhones. No information is inaccessible, yet almost all information is incomprehensible without a larger story or framework into which it fits. Filtering the wheat from the chaff is an ever-present challenge in the Information Age.

The truly scarce commodity in today’s business culture is not knowledge, accurate metrics or access to markets, but wisdom.

3. New technology.

Only a decade ago, CRM software or mass communication tools were so expensive only the biggest corporations could afford them. Now every start-up has free access to high quality email communication tools (like MailChimp), event registration (like Eventbrite), or shared calendaring or data storage (like Gmail).

This is great. But new technologies just keep coming. From manufacturing improvements to new software programs, companies are born each day that aspire to be the next unicorn (start-up valued at over $1 billion), offering the tool that will ensure business success for their customers.

So which ones are necessary, and which are simply noise? Who can help here?

4. Balance between profit, people, excellence and God.

Greg shared that this challenges is such an issue among executives that they formed their last national conference around the subject. We pretend like answers for Christian business owners are easier to come by than is really the case. In all honestly, questions abound:

Should we return more profit to our shareholders, or raise the wages of our employees?
Should we spend more on manufacturing in efforts to build a higher quality product, or will the market bear a similar price using less expensive materials?
Should I extend grace to my manager who just yelled at his employees – or fire him?
Should I spend time praying or hustling to land the next deal?

To say that the purpose of business is to serve the needs of the world is easy; to make actual decisions on what needs get prioritized often is not.

5. Integrating Christian faith with day-to-day business practices.

“So many don’t have a clue as to how to integrate their faith into daily business practices.” Greg shared that so many of his CEOs are wonderful men and women who desire to bring God into their business, but often don’t know where to start. They lack, according to Leith, a theology for their actual work life. What’s really lacking are resources that are accessible (“They’re not going to read a tome by Tim Keller”) and directly applicable to what Christian faith says to day-to-day decisions on hiring, firing, profit margins, strategic planning, supply chains, prices, marketing or HR policy.

To this end, Leith and his team are creating more short video resources on topics like “theology for hiring” for busy business leaders eager to learn, but without the luxury of extensive leisure time for academic study.

Moving forward, I wonder what kind of experiences, resources, and communities are needed to address this growing need among the influential, yet often lonely, business leader.

A version of this post first appeared on the Green Room blog. Image credit.

Work

Productivity: 6 Tips for Getting (the Right) Stuff Done

August 2, 2016

There might be nothing so frustrating as working for an entire day, feeling exhausted when the day’s over – and getting nothing done.

How is this possible? More than once, when scanning back through my day I’ve felt bewildered. I’m tired so I must have been productive, right? A phone call, a quick drop-in meeting, a few emails, driving off to a meeting, replying to a text, checking how my latest post did on Facebook. I barely get to the big task on my list and it’s time to pick up my daughter for piano.

What just happened?

Over the weekend I re-read the sparkling book The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufmann, and one of his chapters perfectly diagnosed my conundrum. It’s called the cognitive switching penalty. The gist: we think we can multi-task, but we can’t. We all actually only do one task at a time. Multi-tasking is a myth. When we constantly switch between several tasks (quick question, quick email, quick trip to the fridge, quick email, quick yada-yada-yada…), our productivity plummets.

Living in a distraction-laden world, we struggle to get meaningful work done.

And as a Christian, I believe this situation is doubly dumfounding. “Teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom,” writes Moses in Psalm 90. For Moses, time is valuable because we’re like the grass of the morning that sprouts up one day and is blown away by evening. Our days will be gone before we know it. Because our time is short and our projects so fleeting, Moses prays fervently for God to “establish the work of our hands.”

But even setting the scope of eternity aside, spending a day getting nothing of lasting value done is just plain unsatisfying.

All of us long to really make a lasting impact on the world with our work and not waste our time on trifles and minutia. We all love the feeling of getting a major project done – and rue the feeling of time wasted and days frittered away.

So what can be done? Here are six quick tips on how we can improve our productivity:

Make a plan.

This may seem like an obvious place to start. But for most, it’s revolutionary. Before you crack open your computer for the day, make a plan. What needs to get done today? What are the top three things I’ve gotta get done today no matter what? And then what are the the things I’d like to get to if I have time? A tool like the emergent task planner can be tremendously helpful.

You have to start with making sure that your big goals for the month, quarter or year get prioritized in your actual daily task list. Here’s where it starts.

Distinguish between being effective and being efficient.

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, said it the best: “Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” There’s no sense in being efficient and getting a long list of things done – if they’re the wrong things to be getting done in the first place.

The first distinction that needs to be made when trying to plan a productive week is: What’s really important here? What will really turn the dial and lead to long term value?

When planning out my week, considering the thousands of details that pull my attention here and there, always start with distinguishing between effective and efficient, between the big projects that are important and the zillions of little tasks that are urgent.

Once you’ve prioritized what’s most important, front load your days with “makers” tasks over “managers” tasks.

Tech investor Paul Graham makes the helpful distinction between two kinds of schedules: “makers schedule” and “Manager schedule.” Makers tasks are essentially creative. These are right brain activities that require abstract thought, concentration, and large blocks of times.

Managers tasks are “get-er-done” types of items – sending an email, typing a memo, hanging a picture, visiting a patient, teaching a short lesson. These are left brain activities that require efficiency, a tight schedule, and a clear task list.

When I plan my daily schedule, I always place my “makers tasks” in the first third of the day, knowing that the afternoon – when my circadian rhythms naturally want to make me fall asleep – are a better time for less intellectually challenging activities.

For makers tasks, get quiet and focused; for managers tasks, make a list and start knocking them out. I recommend time blocks of at least 2 hours for managers tasks.

And on the makers tasks, be conservative. You cannot build a Fortune 100 business plan in 2 hours. Set conservative goals on how many big projects you can get done in a day.

Embrace the Ingvar Principle.

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, might be the most effective and efficient person on the planet. The business processes he’s built for quality, lost cost furniture are legendary. How does he get so much done?

The Ingvar Principle. Here it is: assume every task takes just 10 minutes. “That’s ridiculous!” we retort. “Most of my tasks take hours and hours!” Yes, yes, yes. But consider this: most of the time we avoid big projects because our brains are overwhelmed by the thought of spending hours and hours doing the same thing. It’s too big, we feel. And so we answer an email.

But 10 minutes? That’s simple. I can spend 10 minutes on a task. It’s simple and doable enough to get started, which is the hardest part of any project.

Even for much larger tasks, like writing a book or crafting a business plan, break it up into tiny parts that will take you no more than 10 minutes to complete. And watch yourself overcome psychological barriers to even the most challenging project on your plate.

Make a “Not To Do” list.

Jim Collins, international business guru and author of Good To Great gives us this sagacious advice. Make a “Not To Do” list. All of our task lists are already long. So take a look at yours and do two things:

Decide what’s unimportant on your task list, and just don’t do it. Watch and see if anybody misses that task not getting done. It’s amazing how you can whittle away the minutia with just this step.
Make an actual list of things you know you shouldn’t be doing — those time wasters or things you know you could delegate to somebody more competent than you.

Shut off the internet.

This is perhaps the most valuable insight of this article. Shut off the internet. Really. Social media and the latest depressing, anxiety inducing news article will likely add nothing to your soul, your work or your family.

Take the example of reading. Tim Keller was once asked what he reads. Keller said essentially, You have to read books. Not articles. Shut off the internet. For Keller, the really valuable cultural conversations still happen in the “slow” medium of books. Books develop full arguments. Reading on the same topic for 10 hours has more of an impact on us than reading the first paragraph of an internet article and then moving on. Actually, this kind of reading is more likely to welcome us into what Nicolas Carr calls The Shallows.

We live in an age of distraction. We know this. We also know that most of us need the internet to work. So, let’s do this: check social media, email, and other “fast” media at the end of the day, NOT the beginning.

Save your morning hours for creativity. The swarm of low level tasks can wait until the afternoon.

Paul, Productivity and Sabbath

Productivity isn’t everything. We can make too much of Paul’s injunction to “make the most of every opportunity, for the days are evil.” In a harried American culture, we often just pile on more and more until exhaustion ensues.

But being productive can lead us to resting well. Christians (and Jews) have a unique concept of time, in which productive work is bracketed by Sabbath. Sabbath is a time for not being productive – for worship, for laughter, for long walks, for enjoyment. It’s a time to trust God and remember, “It’s not all up to me.”

Yet getting nothing done in a week can lead the heart also to a frenetic weekend busyness that frets over DIY projects or getting the kids dressed to go to Chik-Fil-A.

Far better to work well, rest well, and return to the week ready to offer our time and skills to serving our neighbors.

Photo Credit: Ingvar Kamprad

Recommended Books:

Getting Things Done, by David Allen
What’s Best Next, by Matt Perman
The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufmann

Law Work

From Big Law to (Very) Small Law: One Lawyer’s Journey from Practicing in Armani Suits in a High Rise Tower to His Sweatpants in His Bedroom (or, from Billing Machine to Whole-Hearted Solopreneuer)

June 22, 2016

Guest post by David Hyams, SDG Law

June 1, 2014. That’s when I decided. I was walking the 1.2 miles home at 3:00 in the morning from the train station (my connector bus ran its final route 7 hours earlier) and I said to myself, “I’m done with this.”

I had been working in large law firms as an associate for six years, so such late nights were not uncommon. But something in my heart snapped that night. Fifteen months later I left big law and launched my own firm.

What happened?

As with most things in life, what compelled me to leave big law and hang out my own shingle was not just one thing or one late night, but a culmination of events and circumstances that God use to lead me out of something arguably quite good into something better.

My wife and I have two children, a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. The three of them wanted me home more. It’s not that I was always gone until 3 am. I’d usually leave in the 6:00 morning hour and return in the 6:00 evening hour. A solid day away from the home, but by no means ludicrous. I rarely traveled for work and I was almost always home for dinner. And I didn’t work weekends much—a Saturday or two a month, sometimes more. (When you’re in the throes of litigation, you do what has to be done. The court and the rules of civil procedure choose the deadlines, you don’t. So there were stints where numerous weekends would string together.) Thus, even though my schedule was tolerable, I wanted more time with my family than dinners in the evening and (most of most) weekends.

We home educate, and I wanted to be more involved with the education and discipleship of my children. Extracting myself physically from the family unit and hub of domestic activity for 12+ hours per day was not only preventing me from understanding what my blessed wife and her pupils were experiencing, but kept me on the periphery of what so much of our family life consisted of. I felt like a guest at the dinner table each night.

I was up for trying my hand at something new. After seven years working in large corporate firms, I had a good sense of what life was going to look like going forward. Sure, there would be the elevation to partner, new cases, and other challenges, but, for the most part, life was going to look pretty much the same. Moreover, repeatedly throughout scripture, the risk-takers are the blessed ones: Noah built the ark, Abraham left his homeland, Moses confronted Pharaoh, David challenged the giant, the disciples “left all” to follow Jesus, the servant invested the talents and saw a return, blind Bartimaeus wouldn’t shut up, the paralytic’s friends dug through the roof, the bleeding woman reached for the hem, Peter stepped out of the boat, Mary poured the nard, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, Paul kept preaching. Risk-takers, all of them. They eschewed comfort, security, and fear of the unknown and embraced the greater reward of God and his kingdom. I wanted that.

Unlike many who sour on big law, I enjoyed my firm. The people I worked with were wonderful. I was blessed to work on very exciting cases, and I received excellent training (and pay). Nevertheless, just as Egypt was initially the place of salvation for Israel, for it was there that they became a nation, it eventually became its oppressor. To become the nation God envisioned, they had to leave. So, too, did I.

I did, however, grow weary of the billable hours. I was tired of evaluating a day’s work by the number of hours billed (or not). Constantly measuring my life in 6-minute increments was soul-sucking and was warping my understanding of what it meant to be a lawyer. Rather than an advocate for truth and justice, to be a lawyer was to be a billing machine. This cynicism, a poisonous fruit of my training to “think like a lawyer,” was robbing me of my joy. For cynicism “question[s] the active goodness of God on our behalf . . . . [and] creates a numbness toward life.”[i] For my heart’s sake, I had to get out.

Bringing the Strands Together

Modern society pulls us in many different directions: our work life is separate from our family life, which is separate from our worship life, which has nothing to do with our play life, and of course the education of our children has nothing to do with any of it. Each of these activities tends to take place in its own, distinct geographical location, with little overlap in locale or people constituting the respective communities. This results in a dis-integrated, compartmentalized, fragmented existence and an emaciated family life. Packer describes the crisis well:

[I]n the Western world at least, and increasingly elsewhere, the family is in deep trouble. Relentless pressures arising from the centralizations of urban life are eroding domestic relationships, so that their intrinsic primacy in human life is no longer being appreciated or lived out. Instead these pressures cut off husbands and wives from each other, cut off children from their parents and grandparents, and cut off the nuclear family from uncles, aunts, and next-door neighbors. And from being everyday life’s focal center, a sustained source of warmth and joy (“there’s no place like home”) the home turns into a dormitory and snacking point from which family members scatter for most of most days.[ii]

My home was no exception.

Prior to homeschooling, we’d shuttle our daughter across town to attend a school where we knew no one and had no vested interest beyond the hours our daughter occupied the building. Needless to say, we didn’t know the teacher, either, or what our daughter was experiencing or being told while she was apart from us. Meanwhile, I daily extracted myself from our home to go downtown and sit in front of a computer only to return at the end of the day to eat, shower, and sleep. We attended church in yet another part of town, and the people we knew there neither worked, lived, nor schooled where we did. Homeschooling was, in part, an effort to bring two of our “life strands” together and live a more integrated life. Going solo was an attempt to incorporate a third strand; thus, I not only decided to start my own practice, but to do so out of my home.[iii] Working from home has enable me to not only be more present and available to my family, but has allowed me to be more involved with homeschooling and my children get to see their father applying his craft.

Learning from the Gray Hairs

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16.) As I listened to older men reflect upon their lives and answer the question of what they would have done differently, I observed a consistent refrain: “I would have worked less.” These men were very “successful” in the worldly sense, but it came at a price. They spent their 30’s and 40’s, the years where their children were young and in the home, building their little kingdoms. But once those little kingdoms were built, they realized that not only did it not satisfy their souls, but those they thought cared and mattered, didn’t, and the only ones who actually cared and mattered, had been neglected along the way. I didn’t want that to happen to me.

I felt like someone was pushing me from behind, down a path of life I was at best ambivalent about, if not outright opposed to. Sure, the pay, title, and prestige of all that big law had to offer was before me, but so were the hours, the stresses, the bureaucracy, and constant exposure to the sirens’ seductive singing. I had begun to live someone else’s story, and the longer I lived it, the more it became mine and the harder it was to pull away. I had to get out.

Pastoring Lawyers

Another motivation for my exit was to provide a more flexible vehicle for me to pursue the hearts of other lawyers. Having attended seminary prior to law school, I’ve always thought of my practice of law as a divine calling. I often refer to myself as a “minister of the law.” My time in the trenches of big law exposed me to the profound need for someone who understands the particular demands of the profession to minster to the hearts of those subject to its grueling pressures. Hanging out my own shingle would (hopefully) afford me more freedom to minister to those attorneys God brought into my life while simultaneously serving as a prophetic declaration that there is a better way. I want to help my brothers and sisters of the bar to become whole-hearted lawyers.

Taking the Leap

Once the decision was made, questions inevitably arose: How will I provide for my family? Where will I get clients? Do I have what it takes? Can I make it on my own without the support of staff and supervision of partners? Will I commit malpractice and get disbarred, thereby dooming my career? Will I ruin my family? How will I ever pay my bills, especially my student loans? What will my colleagues think of me? Won’t I disappoint the partners?

The questions generated fear and uncertainty. But God provided me (and my valiant and stalwart wife) the courage and peace to not allow those questions to become debilitating. Thus, with exactly one client (on a relatively dormant matter) and no idea where my next paycheck would come from, I stepped out of the big law boat on September 1, 2015.

Where We Are Now

Over the course of the last nine months, we have seen God’s steady hand of provision meet our every need. We have not missed a bill and the clients are trickling in. And while I’ve yet to match my big law salary, my family life is better, I’m finding more joy in my craft, and my faith, courage, and business acumen have all grown.

It has not been without its challenges, of course. I have more to consider now than just doing the legal work. It’s also more difficult to “leave work at work” when my commute is only six steps. And there is the occasional, wistful longing for the “melons of Egypt.”

Nonetheless, the overall transition has been life-giving and incredibly liberating. I am living a more integrated, whole-hearted life than ever before. And the practice of law has transitioned from merely a job, to an adventure whereby God continues to call us to higher and farther vistas.

David Hyams, Esq. leads SDG Law, LLC based in Denver, Colorado. His specialty is religious institutions, bankruptcy, and business disputes. He also leads the law vocation group at Denver Institute for Faith & Work. SDG stands for Soli Deo Gloria, one of the five “solas” of the Reformation.

[i] Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, 77, 79 (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009).

[ii] J.I. Packer, Introduction to Richard Baxter, The Godly Home, 12 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books 2010) (ed. Randall Peterson).

[iii] This is not to say God requires one to work from home in order to flourish. See Ps. 104:23 (“Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening.”).

Culture Work World

American Pluralism: “She Thinks My Land Rover is Sexy”

June 14, 2016

When driving down Broadway on my way home from work, I’m often entertained by the mosaic of life lining the street. Antique shops, graffiti on the walls, pot shops and gas stations decorate the corridor of cars heading home.

Last week, while at a stop light, I couldn’t help but notice the interesting mix of bumper stickers on the black Land Rover in front of me.

In two corners were stickers heralding Moab, Utah and skiing Colorado’s mountains. On the right side was a Colorado State University sticker, and right below an SUV boast: “You can go fast, I can go anywhere.” Quintessential Rocky Mountain weekend warrior.

Then the kaleidoscope gets interesting. On the far left, a white outline of a female body in high heels, bending over, with the message: “She thinks my Land Rover is sexy.” Below is a series of three stickers: a hand gun that reads “Rocky Mountain Gun Owner,” another Land Rover sticker, and an ad for Key West. Below the license plate, a sticker proudly heralding the owner’s favorite brand of smokes: Camel Trophy.

And finally, on the lower right corner, just above the bumper, is a Jesus fish.

Huh.

My brain startled awake on the sweltering ride home. How could the owner of such a sexy Land Rover reconcile all these beliefs? The objectification of women, the sauntering pride of owning a big SUV, advertising for a tobacco company, outdoor adventuring, proudly owning hand guns, and biblical Christianity? The moral, the immoral, the amoral, the recreational, and the transcendent all mixed together like stone soup.

Was there a common thread? Or did this guy’s mom just stick a Jesus fish on the back to balance out a fairly typical Coloradan youth’s affections?

What’s going on here?

The American Pantheon

As the light turned green and I eased on the gas, my mind stretched back to a story told by 20^th century British missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin:

“When I was a young missionary I used to spend one evening each week in the monastery of the Ramakrishna Mission in the town where I lived, sitting on the floor with the monks and studying with them the Upanishads and the Gospels.”

Newbigin, a missionary to India for 40 years, remembers,

“In the great hall of the monastery, as in all the premises of the Ramakrishna Mission, there is a gallery of portraits of the great religious teachers of humankind. Among them, of course, is a portrait of Jesus.

“Each year on Christmas Day worship was offered before this picture. Jesus was honored, worshipped, as one of the many manifestations of deity in the course of human history. To me, as a foreign missionary, it was obvious that this was not a step toward the conversion of India. It was the co-option of Jesus into the Hindu worldview.

“Jesus had become just one figure in the endless cycle of karma and samsara, the wheel of being we are all caught up in. He had been domesticated into the Hindu worldview.”

In other words, Newbigin observed that Jesus had simply become one of the Hindu gods, worshipped one day a year but ultimately bowing to another religion, another set of ultimate beliefs.

In America today, as Christianity wanes, we do not live in an “secular atheist” culture, where no god is worshipped, but instead in a religiously pluralistic culture, where every god is worshiped. David Foster Wallace, in his famous 2005 speech at Kenyon University, says, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

The reigning American religion today is a pantheon of gods that go by “my personal choice” or “my personal beliefs.” And in this smorgasbord of products, desires and beliefs, Jesus is great. So are sexy women, hiking, smoking on the back porch or whatever floats your boat.

The insight here is not that pluralism is bad. Let’s get clear. Cultural pluralism, where people of many views and beliefs live together in a peaceful co-existence, is indeed good and, I believe, beautiful.

But the dogma of religious pluralism, which is the belief that “the differences between the religions are not a matter of truth and falsehood, but of different perception of the same truth,” has the effect of domesticating Jesus and his claim to be the resurrected Lord of all.

Our real, functional religion is a vast stew of divinities and desires that we pick from every day in the free market of consumer choice. Here, the holy of holies is “me.” We live, as David Brooks says, in the Age of the Big Me.

I’d argue that today, the greatest challenge for Christianity in the West is not just establishing the claim of Jesus’s Lordship over all of life, or even the universal significance of his death and resurrection, but instead in recognizing that we Christians have domesticated Christ in our own lives, work and culture.

In the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Kings, consistently the author criticizes the wicked kings not for abandoning worship of Yahweh, but for worshipping him alongside of Asherah, Molech, and the Baals.

Syncretism, not disbelief, was the greatest temptation for ancient Israel. So it is for the Church today.

After all, it’s awfully tempting to (naively) believe “She thinks my Land Rover is sexy.”

Finance Work

Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds

June 1, 2016

Months ago I first ran into Tim Weinhold, one of the speakers at next week’s “Stocks, Bonds & Mutual Funds: How Theology Can Renew Investing and Wealth Management.”

After I read one of his articles, Business: Engine of Biblical Blessings, I decided to reach out for a phone call. After chatting for 20 minutes, I learned he was a Harvard grad, faculty member at the Seattle Pacific University, and co-founder of four businesses. But what struck me as strange was his current role: Director of Faith & Business at Eventide Funds.

What kind of a mutual fund, I wondered, hires a guy to think about and write articles on Christianity and business?

Months later, I met Robin John, the CEO at Eventide, and his associate, John Siverling, the CEO of the Christian Investment Forum, for happy hour at Yard House in Park Meadows. Over chips and salsa they riffed on topics like “socially responsible investing” and a new term I had never heard before: “biblically responsible investing.”

I was a novice — and knew I needed to learn more.

Before I met the guys at Eventide Funds, and now my friend Chad Hamilton at Mariner Wealth Advisors, I hadn’t given much thought to the $28 trillion dollars currently invested in mutual funds, much less where my own retirement fund is invested.

But these guys made me pause: do I believe in these companies (or even know what companies are in my mutual funds)? Are they doing good in the world — or harming those God cares about? Can I be smarter about where I put the small amount of money entrusted to me?

Here are five reasons to attend “Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds” on June 8:

Scripture is not silent on God’s purpose for business, and, thus, God’s view on wealth creation and investing.

Tim Weinhold will speak directly on God’s purpose for business, and what it might mean for how we think about investing. From Mosaic law to Wall Street in 20 minutes—that’s no small leap.

The vast majority of Christians — myself included — have never thought twice about where our money is invested, as long as we get a financial return.

I’m guilty as charged, here. Months ago I simply chose the robo-investor that promised highest returns for the least amount of work. But have I erred? Might I be promoting businesses that are actually causing the problems my charitable giving is addressing?

Oops.

Perhaps taking the mercenary approach (earn a bunch so I can give it away) isn’t quite right. And maybe it’s overlooking the “social return,” as Chad Hamilton says, business are already having right now.

The event will help to clarify a host of perspectives, like “socially responsible investing”, “values based investing,” “biblically responsible investing,” and “impact investing.”

Mystifying. What’s the difference between all of these? What does it mean when a company is “extracting value” vs “creating value?”

There may be no 100% clean answers, but can I at least get clear on the options out there so I can make a more faithful decision with my finances?

We’ll dive into the tough questions related to faith and investing, like “How responsible am I for the business decisions of companies I invest in?” and “What is the best way to do good through investing?

It gets complicated. Once we find out what exact companies are in those mutual funds, what then? What are business practices I wouldn’t want to support? What are ones that would be a good idea to invest more in?

And can I still make at least a significant return on my money for retirement? With four little kids at home I feel old age fast approaching….

We’ll have the chance to examine the values that drive our own investing, and what different choices we might make with the capital entrusted to us.

So how much should I give, save, spend and invest? And why? Do I want to retire early because I’m just burnt out on work? If so, will that make me happy? What values do I want my kids to adopt about money? How will I teach that to them? What does it mean to have real impact in the world with my portfolio?

Investing for Social Impact from Chad Hamilton on Vimeo.

We’ll dive into these questions on the evening of June 8 at the Commons @ Champa. I hope you’ll join us for a bright conversation on faith, money and investing for good in the world.

Jeff Haanen

The “Culture Hole” in Our Annual Giving